| Watch: Pelosi tears Trump State of the Union speech in half Posted: 04 Feb 2020 07:59 PM PST  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reacted to Donald Trump's combative State of the Union Speech Tuesday by tearing her copy of it in half after the president concluded his remarks.
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| Baby tests positive for China virus just 30 hours after birth Posted: 05 Feb 2020 03:46 AM PST  A baby in China's epidemic-hit Wuhan city has been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus just 30 hours after being born, Chinese state media reported Wednesday. The official Xinhua news agency reported Monday that a baby born last week to an infected mother had tested negative. The disease is believed to have emerged in December in a Wuhan market that sold wild animals, and spread rapidly as people travelled for the Lunar New Year holiday in January.
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| Yes, the Iowa caucus was a debacle. But Wolf Blitzer's near-meltdown on CNN won the night Posted: 04 Feb 2020 12:18 PM PST  What happened at the Iowa democratic caucus? Results are still pending. But one things's for sure: Wolf Blitzer's near-meltdown on CNN won the night.
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| Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer says he expects to leave Iowa 'with momentum' Posted: 04 Feb 2020 07:52 AM PST  Democratic presidential contender Tom Steyer on Monday said he expected to leave Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses "with momentum" that carries him later this month to Nevada and South Carolina, where he has shown more strength in opinion polls.
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| Doomsday author Chad Daybell claims his deceased wife helped him 'reconnect' with new wife Lori Vallow Posted: 04 Feb 2020 01:39 PM PST  Weeks after his first wife died, Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow were married. He credits his deceased wife for helping him find a new one.
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| Bat Soup, Anyone? How Viruses Transfer From Animals To Humans Posted: 05 Feb 2020 03:15 AM PST  Stop eating bat soup.
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| DA Says Couple Accused of Drugging and Raping Up to 1,000 Women Did No Such Thing—Ex-DA Made it All Up Posted: 04 Feb 2020 06:51 PM PST  A California prosecutor is dropping all charges against a doctor and his girlfriend, alleging that his predecessor "manufactured" allegations that the couple drugged and sexually assaulted up to 1,000 women.The stunning turn of events comes a year and a half after the case against Grant Robicheaux, an orthopedic surgeon who appeared on the TV show The Online Dating Rituals of the American Male, and substitute teacher Cerissa Riley exploded into the headlines.At the time, Orange County's then-district attorney, Tony Rackauckas, claimed the pair lured women to their Newport Beach home, knocked them unconscious, and raped them.At a press conference in September 2018, he said investigators had seized "hundreds" of incriminating videos from the couple's phones. Asked whether the number could be as a high as a thousand, Rackauckas said, "I think so."A few months later, though, Rackauckas was out of office, replaced by current DA Todd Spitzer, who eventually ordered a review of the evidence. He says he was appalled by what he found."The prior District Attorney and his chief of staff manufactured this case and repeatedly misstated the evidence to lead the public and vulnerable women to believe that these two individuals plied up to 1,000 women with drugs and alcohol in order to sexually assault them—and videotape the assaults," Spitzer said in a blistering statement."As a result of the complete case review I ordered beginning in July, we now know that there was not a single video or photograph depicting an unconscious or incapacitated woman being sexually assaulted."Rackauckas has not responded to his former rival's allegations. But Robicheaux's attorney praised the reversal."I don't want to be overly dramatic or hyperbolic, but the mere filing of this case has destroyed irreparably two lives," defense lawyer Philip Cohen told reporters."He has become persona non grata with an entire city, an entire state—and I don't want to be exaggerating—but probably an entire country."Robicheaux, 39, and Riley, 32, insisted from the start that all their liaisons were consensual. They were swingers, their attorneys argued, and the so-called victims were willing participants.They claimed Rackauckas inflated the allegations, hoping that media attention would buoy his re-election effort. And last June, unsealed transcripts of a deposition showed the ex-prosecutor thought the publicity would help him.Spitzer said that's when he assembled a team to re-evaluate the case. "A team of prosecutors with a combined 175 years of experience determined there is no provable evidence that Robicheaux and Riley committed any sexual offense," he said in a press release.The charges that will be dropped include kidnapping and rape; Robicheaux and Riley would have faced up to life in prison if convicted.At least some of the women who accused Robicheaux and Riley maintain they were assaulted.Michael Fell, an attorney for one of them, told the Los Angeles Times the decision is a betrayal of his client."For somebody to report, for them to go through what she had to go through with the police, for the district attorney's office to file criminal charges, for her to have to be patient the last two years while the case is being prosecuted, only for it to be dropped—she's going to be devastated," Fell said.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Wuhan Doctor Who Was Punished for Warning of Coronavirus Outbreak Has Been Infected Posted: 04 Feb 2020 11:51 AM PST  A doctor from Wuhan, China, who was punished by authorities for warning medical school classmates of the outbreak of the then-unknown coronavirus, is himself now infected with the virus.Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist, told CNN from his intensive-care hospital bed that he had contracted the virus after coming into contact with an infected patient at Wuhan Central Hospital on January 10. Li developed a fever and coughing, and could only communicate with CNN via text message due to severe breathing problems.On December 30, Li texted his classmates that the Wuhan hospital had seen several cases of a SARS-like illness in patients that had visited a seafood market in the city. While he told his friends to warn family privately, screenshots of his texts went viral in China hours later.While Wuhan authorities announced the outbreak on December 31, Li was reprimanded by police on January 3 for "spreading rumors online" and "severely disrupting social order.""My family would worry sick about me, if I lose my freedom for a few days," Li said. "There was nothing I could do. [Everything] has to adhere to the official line."There are now 20,438 cases of the Wuhan coronavirus in mainland China, with close to 200 confirmed cases in other nations. China has reported 425 deaths from the virus, while one death was reported in the Philippines.China has accused the U.S. of "spreading fear" in the wake of the outbreak, which has surpassed the 2003 SARS outbreak in scope. The Trump administration on Friday announced a series of measures to prevent foreign citizens who have recently visited China from entering the U.S.
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| White Wisconsin lawmaker drops Black History Month proposal Posted: 04 Feb 2020 11:49 AM PST ![White Wisconsin lawmaker drops Black History Month proposal]( "White Wisconsin lawmaker drops Black History Month proposal") State Rep. Scott Allen, a Waukesha Republican, said in a statement that "it is possible that I made incorrect assumptions." He said he would instead like to co-sponsor a separate resolution that black lawmakers authored. "The proposed resolution concentrated on the character of individuals involved in an important effort in American and Black history, the operation of the Underground Railroad," Allen said. The Wisconsin Legislature has traditionally recognized Black History Month, which runs through February, with a resolution in both the Assembly and Senate.
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| At State of the Union, Trump declines to shake hands with Pelosi Posted: 04 Feb 2020 06:35 PM PST  President Trump declined to shake hands with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at Tuesday night's State of the Union Address, which came less than two months before Democrats in the same House chamber voted to impeach him.
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| China declines Cambodia PM's request to visit virus epicentre Posted: 05 Feb 2020 05:33 AM PST  China turned down a request from Cambodia's leader Hun Sen to visit the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus outbreak to comfort stranded Cambodian students as it could not "properly arrange" a trip to locked-down Wuhan city, state media said Wednesday. Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province have reported hundreds of deaths and thousands of infections, and more than 53 million people are living under tough restrictions. "Considering the fact that Wuhan is doing all it can to fight the outbreak, and given the tight schedule, a visit... cannot be properly arranged at this moment," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a briefing Wednesday.
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| How Iowa's caucus disaster softened Biden's loss and marred Warren's overperformance Posted: 05 Feb 2020 08:11 AM PST  The Iowa caucuses may as well have happened under a rock.With its 41 delegates making up just a percentage of the total delegate pool out there, Iowa gets an outsized reputation in the presidential primary process simply because it comes first. But with the full results of its caucuses still unrevealed 36 hours later, the often candidacy-ending state has lost most of its power.Things didn't look good for former Vice President Joe Biden before the Iowa caucuses began, with state polls showing him far from the runaway frontrunner status he once claimed. The first chunk of results from Iowa backed that up: With 71 percent of precincts reporting, he was in a solid fourth place and could expect no delegates. But Biden didn't have to address that fact during his caucus night speech, even though he dropped out when he came in fifth place in Iowa when he was running in 2008.Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has never held on to a top polling spot for long. And yet she outperformed those polls Monday night, wrangling at least five of the 27 delegates that have been decided so far with 18 percent of the vote. Again, she lost out on the opportunity to spin those votes into a positive speech on Monday night, and joined the other candidates in quickly scooting off to New Hampshire for the next round.And as for former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, well, he declared victory Monday night despite the current caucus count showing him tied with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Another 30 percent of results are still missing, and they could tip the scales in truly any direction.More stories from theweek.com Trump just won the Iowa Democratic caucuses Should financial markets be freaked out by coronavirus? America is doing so much better than you think
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| Russia says alarmed by U.S. deployment of low-yield nuclear missiles Posted: 05 Feb 2020 07:47 AM PST  Russia is alarmed by the U.S. Navy's decision to deploy low-yield nuclear missiles on submarines since they heighten the risk of a limited nuclear war, a Russian official said on Wednesday. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the deployment of the W76-2 warhead in the name of strengthening deterrence had caused Russia great concern over U.S. nuclear strategy, Russian news agencies reported. The U.S. Defense Department said on Tuesday the Navy had fielded a low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead, something the Pentagon says is needed to deter adversaries like Russia.
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| More than 3,700 people are trapped on a cruise ship near Japan after 10 of them tested positive for the coronavirus. These are the steps Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Line are taking to protect passengers from it. Posted: 05 Feb 2020 08:25 AM PST  Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean International, and Norwegian Cruise Line have taken a number of steps in response to the Wuhan coronavirus.
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| He Spoke About Racism His Kids Had Faced in Michigan Schools During a Community Meeting. ‘Then Why Didn’t You Stay in Mexico?' a Heckler Asked Posted: 05 Feb 2020 05:28 AM PST  The remark shocked the room; a heated discussion ensued
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| A Catholic Polish midwife who delivered 3,000 babies at Auschwitz remembered 75 years after camp's liberation Posted: 05 Feb 2020 08:11 AM PST  An estimated 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz. That included newborns who were killed by drowning or lethal injection.
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| After 2 Supreme Court wins, Florida man gets $875K from city Posted: 05 Feb 2020 03:24 PM PST  Few people have fought any city hall all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won, but Fane Lozman did it twice. Now the Florida city he's battled since 2006 is going to pay him thousands of dollars in legal fees. The Riviera Beach City Council voted Wednesday to approve an $875,000 settlement with Lozman, who began his legal odyssey with a fight over seizure of his floating home and then claimed a First Amendment violation when he was arrested at a council meeting.
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| Republicans Hate Surveillance on Trump but Sound Like They’ll Renew the PATRIOT Act Posted: 05 Feb 2020 11:43 AM PST  If Republicans have any appetite for reining in domestic surveillance that they describe as a massive violation of the civil liberties of Donald Trump's associates, it wasn't on display when FBI Director Christopher Wray made his first appearance on Capitol Hill since the damning Justice Department inspector general's report into the Trump-Russia investigation. That's a real issue in light of next month's expiration of several intrusive surveillance measures contained in the 2001 PATRIOT Act's Section 215. One of those measures, the business records provision, permits broad FBI collection of records from service providers about an investigative target without that target ever knowing about it. But few Republicans at Wednesday's hearing who pronounced themselves offended by FBI surveillance abuses in the Trump-Russia probe, known as Crossfire Hurricane, told Wray that they will cost him Section 215. It was reminiscent of how Trump and House intelligence committee Republicans spent 2017 railing against surveillance on Trump's allies before reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's single most expansive provision in January 2018.Wray, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, was in for rough treatment from the panel's Republican members. Hanging over his head was Inspector General Michael Horowitz's findings that the FBI misrepresented information to the secret surveillance court relevant to continuing its surveillance on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. But Wray had a script and he stuck to it. He refused to characterize any aspect of Horowitz's investigation when legislators of both parties attempted soliciting a soundbite that could help or hurt Trump. Instead, he reiterated variations on a theme: Horowitz's report "described conduct that is unacceptable and unrepresentative of the FBI as an institution." Several of the panel's Republicans, having read Horowitz describe FBI officials misrepresenting their basis for continuing surveillance before a court that almost always hears exclusively from the government, found that frustrating. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) decried the FBI's "systemic issues." Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) referenced the FISA Court's Judge Rosemary Collyer, who said the Horowitz report "calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable." More bluntly, California's Tom McClintock told Wray, "I don't trust your agency anymore."But that lack of trust ends where the PATRIOT Act begins. The committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Doug Collins (GA), said "we must reauthorize" the expiring PATRIOT provisions, even as Collins was a rare Republican who contextualized the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as a congressional response to the intelligence agencies' unconstitutional surveillance of peaceful protesters and others. Wray took Collins' opening to agree that the PATRIOT provisions were "not related" to the Carter Page case. That's true. But it overlooks Judge Collyer's broader point about how the Page case indicts the FBI's trustworthiness in its other, voluminous surveillance applications to her court. And FISA court-authorized surveillance isn't the outer limit of the FBI's surveillance powers. In October, it was revealed that the court found the FBI's warrantless searches for Americans' data captured in National Security Agency dragnets were so massively overbroad as to threaten constitutional freedoms.Collins, to his credit, persisted in asking Wray if there needed to be a "macro-level" examination of FISA. But Wray brushed that off. The director said he was "leery of any kind of change that would have any unintended consequences."That was about it for most Republicans on the committee. They wanted instead for Wray to commit to firing FBI officials, often denounced by Trump, involved in the Trump-Russia investigation, most of whom have already departed the bureau. "I hope you've considered there might be criminal culpability," Biggs told Wray. "A lot of people in my district have totally lost confidence" in the FBI, said Arizona's Debbie Lesko, who further suggested that that "maybe you [could] make it public" when agents involved in the Russia investigation get disciplined.A partial exception came from Armstrong, who noted that "FISA reauthorization" was coming up, as did Jim Jordan (R-OH), but Jordan quickly veered away from endorsing PATRIOT Act expirations. A more substantial exception came from Virginia Republican Ben Cline, who pointed to the March PATRIOT expirations and said, "It is paramount that we ensure American civil liberties and due process are in no way inhibited."Wray told Cline that returning to the higher, pre-PATRIOT Act standards, which demanded that the FBI possess specific, articulable facts that domestic surveillance targets were agents of a foreign power, "would be a sad day for America."Civil libertarians expressed their own frustration that legislators focused their ire on the small cohort of Americans tied to Trump whose liberties were jeopardized while ignoring the untold millions of Americans who for a generation have lived with their privacy at risk from their own security apparatus."Ranking Member Collins asked FBI Director Wray whether people's civil liberties are now protected under FISA. As any civil liberties advocate will tell you, the answer is an emphatic 'no,'" said Sean Vitka, counsel for digital-rights group Demand Progress. "The DOJ's Inspector General report did reveal disturbing issues that need to be resolved, but Congress, and in particular the House Judiciary Committee, is wrong to remember Carter Page but forget the millions of innocent people who have been wrongfully spied on under this and previous administrations."Vitka backs a bipartisan bill proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) that puts substantial restrictions on information the FBI can collect and use under Section 215 and expands safeguards on related surveillance authorities. "In fact, the House Judiciary Committee should make it clear to surveillance hawks that nothing weaker than the Safeguarding Americans' Private Records Act will advance to the floor under its watch," he said. Jake Laperruque, of the Project on Government Oversight, said "concerns about the Carter Page FISA warrants" aided momentum for surveillance reform like the Wyden bill. "If the members talking about Crossfire Hurricane now want their complaints to be taken seriously," Laperruque said, "this is the type of reform legislation they'll need to support."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Modi vows 'grand' Hindu temple at flashpoint site Posted: 04 Feb 2020 04:18 PM PST  The construction of a grand Hindu temple at holy site bitterly contested with Muslims moved a step closer Wednesday when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said a trust had been finalised to oversee the project. The razing of a mosque at Ayodhya by a huge crowd of Hindu zealots almost 30 years ago unleashed some of the country's worst sectarian violence since independence, with more than 2,000 people killed. After a decades-long legal battle, India's highest court ruled in November that the land in northern India should be managed by a trust to oversee the construction of a temple.
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| Iowa caucus: Former Hillary Clinton staff revealed to be behind ‘Shadow’ app that caused chaos Posted: 04 Feb 2020 09:35 AM PST  The team behind the disastrous app used in the Iowa election app has been revealed.The app, created by a startup named Shadow, was supposed to be used to co-ordinate information from the caucuses and allow organisers to send results back to the party. But it crashed repeatedly through the night, and has led to a failure to declare any kind of result.
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| Hundreds of Salvadorans deported by US were killed or abused, report reveals Posted: 04 Feb 2020 11:30 PM PST  Human Rights Watch says 138 Salvadorans were murdered from 2013 to 2019 and 70 others were abused or sexually assaulted * Fleeing a hell the US helped createAt least 200 Salvadoran migrants and asylum seekers have been killed, raped or tortured after being deported back to El Salvador by the United States government which is turning a blind eye to widely known dangers, a new investigation reveals.Human Rights Watch has documented 138 deported Salvadorans murdered by gang members, police, soldiers, death squads and ex-partners between 2013 and 2019. The majority were killed within two years of deportation by the same perpetrators they had tried to escape by seeking safety in the US.The report, Deported to Danger: United States deportation policies expose Salvadorans to death and abuse, also identifies more than 70 others who were subjected to beatings, sexual assault and extortion – usually at the hand of gangs – or who went missing after being returned.El Salvador, the most densely populated country in Central America with just over 6 million citizens, has one of the world's highest rates of homicide and sexual violence. In addition, almost 11,000 people were registered missing during the last decade - more than the number of people who disappeared during the 1979-1992 civil war.Authorities are largely ineffective in protecting the population from this violence, which is often perpetrated by street gangs which have 60,000 or so members across the country.Extrajudicial executions, sexual assaults, enforced disappearances and torture have also been perpetrated by state security forces with almost total impunity.Amid widespread terror and impunity, the number of Salvadorans fleeing has soared, with asylum applicants in the US increasing by almost 1,000% in five years to 60,000 in 2017, according to UN figures.The dire security situation is well documented, but despite this, the US continues to deport Salvadorans to face abuse and even death, according to HRW.For instance, 17-year-old Javier escaped gang recruitment in 2010 and sought asylum in the US where his mother Jennifer had already fled. His asylum application was rejected, and Javier was deported in early 2017, aged 23. Four months later he was killed by members of the Mara Salvatrucha-13 gang."The United States has to have known this was happening because the cases were publicly reported and more importantly because Salvadorans make it clear in asylum applications that this is their reality. But this reality is ignored or not believed by US authorities," said Elizabeth Kennedy, co-author of the report.International law prohibits the US from returning anyone to a country where they face serious risks to their lives or safety.About three-quarters of the 1.2 million Salvadorans living in the US without citizenship lack papers or hold a temporary legal status making them vulnerable to deportation. Between 2014 and 2018, the US deported 111,000 Salvadorans, and granted asylum to just 18.2% of applicants – the lowest rate in the region.Deportations – and violence against deportees – is not a new phenomenon. But the approval of asylum claims plummeted since the Trump administration rolled out a series of hostile policies including Remain in Mexico – officially known as Migration Protection Protocols – and imposed tight restrictions on gender-based and gang-related grounds for asylum."The attack on asylum is unique in the Trump administration, which has put even more Salvadorans – and others – at risk of deportation, and made it much less likely that they are able to even present their case to get effective protection," said Kennedy.HRW researchers tracked and verified hundreds of press reports, and conducted 150 interviews with deportees, surviving family members, government and security officials, and US immigration attorneys.The actual number of killings and attacks is probably significantly higher than reported as most crimes in El Salvador go unreported, state violence are covered up, and it's too dangerous for journalists to enter some neighbourhoods.Alison Parker, managing director of HRW's US programme and co-author of the report, said: "Salvadorans are facing murder, rape and other violence after deportation in shockingly high numbers, while the US government narrows Salvadorans' access to asylum and turns a blind eye to the deadly results of its callous policies."
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| Norwegian won't issue $32,000 refund to family that canceled Asian cruise over coronavirus Posted: 05 Feb 2020 07:58 AM PST  A Maui woman said that when her family tried to cancel their upcoming Asia cruise, Norwegian wouldn't refund any of the $32,000 they'd already paid.
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| Quarantined Wuhan residents shout words of support out of their high-rise apartment windows Posted: 05 Feb 2020 12:19 PM PST  Last week, a video emerged on Reddit showing residents in Wuhan shouting words of support to each other out of their apartment windows.
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| Democrats protest during SOTU by chanting Elijah Cummings’ prescription drug bill Posted: 04 Feb 2020 07:26 PM PST  Democrats protested President Trump during his State of The Union address by Chanting Elijah Cummings' prescription drug bill.
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| California Needs Housing — and Won’t Get It Posted: 05 Feb 2020 03:30 AM PST  Anyone wondering how sclerotic and ungovernable California has become need look no further than the failure last week of an incredibly modest attempt to reform the state's archaic housing regulations.California is in the midst of an enormous crisis of affordable housing. The median home price in the state now exceeds $500,000, while the median rent for a two‐bedroom apartment tops $1,800 per month, nearly 55 percent higher than the national median. In cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, average rent exceeds $2,500 per month. Less than a third of Californians can afford the median house cost, while more than half face rents that economists consider unaffordable as a portion of their incomes.The high cost of housing is largely a function of high demand and low supply. Estimates show that California needs 3.5 million housing units by 2025 just to meet current needs. Yet the state has the nation's second-lowest rate of housing starts.The lack of affordable housing has led to an explosion of homelessness. There are an estimated 130,000 homeless people in the state, including around 28,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area and 60,000 in Los Angeles County alone. But even often overlooked cities such as San Diego have homeless populations in excess of 8,000. By some calculations, more than 47 percent of all unhoused homeless people in America reside in California.While many of California's homeless suffer from drug, alcohol, and mental-health problems, many more are driven to the streets by the cost of housing. By some estimates, as much as two-thirds of the state's homeless problem can be traced to housing costs.Last week California lawmakers had the opportunity to take the tiniest of baby steps toward dealing with the crisis. The Housing Accountability Act, SB50, would have allowed the construction of multi-family housing in some neighborhoods near mass transit that were previously zoned exclusively for single-family housing. They failed.It is important to understand that this bill was already the weakest of weak teas, especially after it went through many changes. In a state where 50 to 75 percent of residential property is zoned single-family only, it would have opened up barely anything. And it would have done almost nothing to deal with the suffocating weight of environmental, labor, and other regulations that have driven up construction costs. For example, environmental laws alone have driven up prices by nearly 10 percent, and prevailing-wage laws are estimated to raise median housing costs by $42,900 to $79,000. Still, it was a recognition of reality: The only way to deal with a housing shortage is to build more housing.But even this minimal step was rejected by many state legislators and special interests. Caught between a coalition of anti-growth environmentalists and wealthy NIMBYs, pro-housing legislators could not overcome the power of the status quo. After all, the homeless and the poor, who suffer most from high housing costs, are a lot less likely to vote than those who want to keep low-income housing out of their neighborhood.Pro-housing legislators have vowed to keep up the fight, but unless Californians begin to face up to the basic laws of economics -- such as supply and demand -- the future of the Golden State looks grim.
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| The Kurdish Tragedy: What America Can Learn From Its Foreign Policy Fumbles in Iraq Posted: 05 Feb 2020 10:12 AM PST  As bitter of a pill it is to swallow in watching a good and reliable partner fall under the thumb of hostile actors, policymakers and foreign policy experts can avoid future calamities by developing realistic and deliberative long-term strategies that support America's diplomats and armed forces serving as the instruments of that policy.
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| Romney reportedly laughed hysterically at suggestion his impeachment vote is part of a plan to run for president Posted: 05 Feb 2020 01:48 PM PST  If Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) had an ulterior motive for his decision to vote to convict President Trump for abuse of power, he's doing a good job of hiding it.In an interview with The Atlantic, Romney was asked about a speculative story published by The Washington Examiner, which suggested his bipartisan behavior during the Senate impeachment trial was part of a plan to run for president in 2024. Romney, people told the Examiner, was trying to establish himself as the star of the Republican old guard should Trump fail in the 2020 election.That apparently got Romney right in the gut, but not because his feelings were hurt. Instead, per The Atlantic, Romney cracked up at the idea. "Yes! That's it!," he reportedly jokingly exclaimed. "Look at the base I have! It's going to be at least 2 or 3 percent of the Republican Party. As goes Utah, so goes the nation!"> When I asked Romney about speculation that he's positioning himself for another presidential run, he laughed harder than I'd ever seen him laugh: https://t.co/KtAe5drGxv pic.twitter.com/536g09o7Ns> > — McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) February 5, 2020Romney said the trial took a toll on him, and he also expects some rough days ahead since he assumes his party won't treat him too kindly over the conviction vote, so he probably didn't mind having the chance to chuckle. Read more about how Romney came to his decision at The Atlantic.More stories from theweek.com Trump just won the Iowa Democratic caucuses Should financial markets be freaked out by coronavirus? America is doing so much better than you think
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| Kansas no longer fighting claims of wrongly convicted man Posted: 04 Feb 2020 02:32 PM PST  Kansas is dropping its fight against the compensation claim from a man who spent 23 years in prison for a double homicide before a judge vacated convictions that were secured even though no physical evidence or motive tied him to the crimes, the state's attorney general said Tuesday. Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in an Associated Press interview that his office made the decision after reviewing 900 pages of documents from Lamonte McIntyre's attorney that had not been provided to it previously. Schmidt said his office will work with McIntyre's attorney on a settlement to present to a Shawnee County District Court judge.
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| 'Australia Should Be Ashamed' After More Than 40 Koalas Killed on Logging Site Posted: 04 Feb 2020 12:57 PM PST  30 koalas were euthanized after being found injured among the felled trees
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| Joe Biden flopped in Iowa. And so did the Democratic party's reputation Posted: 04 Feb 2020 12:00 AM PST  The apparent malfunctioning of a new app, meant to transmit vote totals, threw the Iowa caucus in disarray. And this benefited some more than others If you're the type of person who thinks the Democratic party is a creaking, incompetent entity whose leadership needs overthrowing, the Iowa caucuses certainly validated your point of view. None of us knew who would win, but we had at least expected a result. We didn't get one, at least not on caucus night. State Democratic party officials announced that due to "quality control" issues, release of the result would be indefinitely delayed. On a conference call with representatives of the candidates, party officials hung up the phone when asked when the totals would be released.So what do we know? Well, one thing we can say confidently is that "frontrunner" Joe Biden flopped. There were places where Biden didn't even meet the 15% threshold needed to maintain viability from the first round to the second round – at one caucus site, the attorney general of Iowa had to switch from Biden to Buttigieg when Biden was disqualified. It explains why Biden's surrogate John Kerry was heard on the phone the other day asking whether it would be possible for him to enter the race at the last minute to save the Democratic party from being conquered by Sanders.Internal numbers released by the Sanders campaign, showing results from 40% of caucus sites, showed Sanders winning with approximately 30% of the vote, Pete Buttigieg coming in second with 25%, Elizabeth Warren third with 21%, and Joe Biden a very distant fourth with 12%. If those numbers match the ultimate totals, they are great for Sanders and absolutely horrific for Biden. Sanders will have kicked the crap out of the frontrunner, Barack Obama's former vice-president and the man most favored to win the nomination. It would be a stunning upset.But Biden caught a lucky break. With the party not releasing the actual result, his campaign sent a letter demanding that the result be suppressed until such time as the "quality control issues" were resolved. If it takes long enough to get the official count, Biden may hope that Iowa is old news, or that the issues surrounding the caucus are discussed far more than the actual result. (That's one reason we need to make sure we don't get bogged down too much in talking about the procedural issues rather than the actual outcome.)So what went wrong? It's still not quite clear, though there were reports that a special app used to transmit vote totals had malfunctioned. Questions were immediately raised about who built the app and how it had been deployed. Ironically, it was introduced in order to "get results out to the public quicker" and had been "hastily put together" over the last two months. There had been security concerns from the start, and when NPR questioned the state party chairman, he "declined to provide more details about which company or companies designed the app, or about what specific measures have been put in place to guarantee the system's security". Ironically, it was apparently developed by a firm literally called "Shadow", partly funded by the Pete Buttigieg campaign.If you're a Sanders supporter, you have reason to be suspicious. We had already seen the Des Moines Register suppress the results of its "gold standard" poll on the eve of the election, after a complaint from Buttigieg. And with 0% of caucus results in, Buttigieg declared himself "victorious", praising the "incredible result" and saying Iowa had "shocked the nation". The only thing that had shocked the nation at this point was Iowa's total inability to perform the relatively simple task of counting people's votes. But Buttigieg, good McKinseyite that he is, was getting a head start on deploying the PR spin.For Sanders supporters, being denied a rightful victory in Iowa gives feelings of déjà vu. In 2016, Sanders may well have won Iowa, possibly by a lot, but the state party did not release the vote totals. Instead, it only released delegate numbers, which showed Bernie narrowly losing the state "701-697" to Hillary Clinton. The delegate numbers are calculated strangely (this time around, in one precinct, Sanders beat Buttigieg 111 votes to 47 votes in the "first alignment" but both ended up with two delegates). If the vote totals had been known in 2016, it might have been clear Bernie had won. With his New Hampshire victory shortly after, Clinton would have been seen as losing the race, and the whole election might have turned out differently. That's why, this time around, the Sanders campaign ensured that the vote totals would be released (and took a count of its own for good measure). This time, if he wins, everyone will know … eventually.Despite the chaos, certain aspects of the Iowa caucus were inspiring. For the first time, a caucus was held in a mosque, and hundreds of Muslims and non-Muslims came together to vote for Bernie. In the first caucus of the day, immigrant pork plant workers, whose evening shifts prevented them from joining the main event, came out early to line up for Bernie. Internationally based Iowans caucused around the world, including in Scotland and Tblisi, Georgia. The Iowa caucus might seem like a good illustration of the dysfunction in American democracy, but some of its participatory elements are beautiful. It would be a shame if the lively, communal caucus system disappeared entirely in favor of secret ballots in voting booths, as some were already recommending as the vote-counting mess unfolded.If the Sanders team's count is close to accurate (bear in mind, it was only 40% of caucus sites), he had the night he needed to have. The progressive vote is still being split between Sanders and Warren, but at least Biden hasn't managed to capitalize on that so far. The good news for Sanders is that, even if Buttigieg does unexpectedly well, Mayor Pete is destined to struggle as the campaign moves toward more racially diverse states. But all of the results remain speculative, since the Iowa Democratic party seemed determined to prove that we need a political revolution that overthrows the party establishment. * Nathan Robinson is a Guardian US columnist. He is the editor of Current Affairs
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| China virus toll jumps past 500 as more cases found on cruise ship off Japan Posted: 05 Feb 2020 05:14 PM PST |
| A pregnant mother infected with the coronavirus gave birth, and her baby tested positive 30 hours later Posted: 05 Feb 2020 01:53 PM PST  The new coronavirus has infected very few children. However, a children's hospital in Wuhan reported that a day-old infant tested positive.
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| The controversial YouTuber who faked his girlfriend's death has been arrested on a charge of assault with a weapon Posted: 04 Feb 2020 03:10 PM PST  Jason Ethier, also known as ImJayStation, is expected to appear in court next month. He recently gained attention for faking his girlfriend's death.
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| The Surprising Threat to America (No, Not Russia, China or Iran) Posted: 03 Feb 2020 09:00 PM PST  It comes from within.
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| CNN’s Van Jones worries Trump’s address will win over black voters Posted: 05 Feb 2020 12:24 PM PST  CNN analyst Van Jones warned fellow Democrats on Tuesday that Trump's criminal justice reform policies and prioritization of funding for historically black colleges could win over black voters.
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| Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown reveals Republican senators privately admit Trump is 'reckless and unfit' Posted: 05 Feb 2020 02:47 PM PST  Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) had some harsh words for his Republican colleagues following the acquittal of President Trump.Brown, like his fellow Democrats, voted to remove Trump from office on both articles of impeachment, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. But he still wanted to get his point across. So in an op-ed in The New York Times he offered a scathing rebuke of the GOP for, as he sees it, cowering before the Trump administration.The senator noted many Republicans in the upper chamber were especially offended by the suggestion from lead House prosecutor Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) that they were warned by the White House to vote in favor of Trump or their heads "will be on a pike."Brown wasn't able to specifically back that claim up, but he did write that Republicans have privately agreed Trump is "reckless and unfit," while acknowledging his "lies" and admitting "what he did was wrong." (It's worth noting several Republican senators did publicly attest to the last point.) Brown said he's asked Republicans what they'll do to keep Trump in check after voting for his acquittal, but he only gets "shrugs and sheepish looks" in response. Read more at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com Trump just won the Iowa Democratic caucuses Should financial markets be freaked out by coronavirus? America is doing so much better than you think
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| Mexican farmers take over dams to stop water payments to US Posted: 05 Feb 2020 11:08 AM PST ![Mexican farmers take over dams to stop water payments to US]( "Mexican farmers take over dams to stop water payments to US") A dispute over water payments to the United States widened in Mexico Wednesday, after President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador said Mexico has to pay its debts but angry farmers pushed back National Guard troops guarding a dam. Under a 1944 treaty, Mexico and the United States are supposed to allow cross-border flows of water to each other, but Mexico has fallen badly behind and now has to quickly catch up on payments.
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| Pete Buttigieg Maintains Lead in Iowa: Campaign Update Posted: 04 Feb 2020 09:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Pete Buttigieg maintained his lead in the Iowa caucuses after the Democratic party released a second tranche of results, cementing his status as a credible contender after an extraordinary rise from the little-known mayor of a small Indiana city to the top tier of the presidential race.With 71% of precincts reporting, Bernie Sanders was a close second with his promises to deliver Medicare for All and lead a political revolution against wealth inequality.The results were a major setback for former Vice President Joe Biden, who was in fourth place behind Senator Elizabeth Warren.Addressing supporters in New Hampshire, the state with the next presidential contest, Buttigieg, 38, leaned into his relative youth. He said "Every time that we have earned that Oval Office it has been with a candidate that's focused on the future, new in politics, offering a different vision."New Hampshire Shows Biden and Sanders Tied in next contestBernie Sanders and Joe Biden are tied for first place in the latest New Hampshire poll.A survey of 491 registered voters who intend to vote in next week's primary found the Vermont senator and the former vice president each had 19% support.That's a jump of 10 percentage points for Sanders since the college's November poll."Sanders' rise is testament in part to the fact that hard campaigning in New Hampshire does persuade voters," said New Hampshire Institute of Politics Executive Director Neil Levesque.Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg was in third, with 14%; while Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar were tied with 11% support. The poll was conducted from Jan. 29 to Feb. 2, the eve of the Iowa caucuses.Iowa GOP Defends First-In-the-Nation Caucus (5:13 p.m.)While Republicans close to President Donald Trump have ridiculed the vote-counting debacle that snarled results from the Democrats' caucuses in Iowa, the state's elected GOP officials were quick to defend the tradition that brings visitors -- and millions in spending -- to the state every four years."Iowa's unique role encourages a grassroots nominating process that empowers everyday Americans, not Washington insiders or powerful billionaires," Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and Governor Kim Reynolds said in a joint statement Tuesday morning. "Iowa's bipartisan first-in-the nation status helped lead to the nomination of President Obama and has the full backing of President Trump."Trump confirmed as much earlier, saying in a tweet the foul-up was the fault of "Do Nothing Democrats" but "as long as I am President Iowa will stay where it is. Important tradition!"On caucus night, allies of the president, including his son, were quick to float conspiracy theories about the delay in reporting results."Yeah rigging the primary worked wonders for the Democrats last time," Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, invoking his father's frequent claims in 2016 that the Democratic nominating process was rigged against Bernie Sanders.Democrats Declined DHS Offer to Test Caucus App (9:26 a.m.)Iowa Democrats declined an offer from the Department of Homeland Security to test its new caucus app for cybersecurity flaws and vulnerablilities, acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf told Fox News Tuesday.Such a test from DHS' Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency would have focused on security and not the performance issue that Wolf said was most likely responsible for the failure. Still, Wolf said this was a "concerning event" given the amount of scrutiny around elections security after Russians targeted the 2016 presidential election."We don't see any malicious cyber activity going on," Wolf said. "No one hacked into it -- so this is more of a stress or load issue as well as a reporting issue that we're seeing in Iowa."The Iowa Democratic Party has said there was no evidence of hacking in the much-delayed results, merely human error.Iowa Democrats Say Results to Be Released Today (8:24 a.m.)Iowa Democrats said they identified a flaw in a phone application that caused an hours-long delay in reporting results of their first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses and that they expected to announce a winner on Tuesday.The Iowa Democratic Party said in a statement that it had investigated the app's failure and that "there was not a cyber security intrusion.""We determined with certainty that the underlying data collected via the app was sound," party chairman Troy Price said in the statement. "While the app was recording data accurately, it was reporting out only partial data. We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system. This issue was identified and fixed."The state party deployed a new app for officials running local caucuses at more than 1,600 sites to report results after the Monday evening vote. But the app failed in many locations and precinct leaders also said they were unable to report results by phone."While our plan is to release results as soon as possible today, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld," Price said.Democrats Head to New Hampshire Without Iowa ResultsDemocratic candidates were leaving Iowa without the results of the party's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses and heading to New Hampshire to campaign Tuesday before that state's primary next week.Pete Buttigieg arrived in the Granite State for a morning town hall at a theater in Manchester. Buttigieg told MSNBC in an interview Tuesday that he will trust the results from Iowa, which are expected to be released later in the day."I certainly will take the folks in Iowa at their word," Andrew Yang, who held a 4 a.m. rally at the Manchester regional airport, told CNN. "I'm sure they would not have wished this kind of delay on anyone."Amy Klobuchar told CNN upon arrival in Manchester Tuesday that she was confident that Iowa party officials could count the results by hand.The Iowa caucuses Monday left candidates and voters hanging with no results and no springboard into the next round of contests. The state party deployed a new phone app for precinct chairmen to report results at the same time it deployed a new system for tabulating winners. Both appear to have failed.Some campaigns were putting out their own internal surveys or laying claim to leading positions in Iowa. But without any formal tabulation released candidates headed to the next stop.Elizabeth Warren took an overnight flight for an 11 a.m. event in Keene. Joe Biden and his wife Jill were to hold an event at 11:30 a.m. in Nashua. And Bernie Sanders will hold an event at 5 p.m. at an athletic club in Milford.COMING UP:CNN will host town halls featuring eight presidential candidates in New Hampshire on Feb. 5 and 6, and some of them will debate there on Feb. 7.The New Hampshire primary is Feb. 11.Nevada holds its caucuses on Feb. 22, and South Carolina has a primary on Feb. 29.(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)\--With assistance from Magan Crane, Elizabeth Wasserman and Alex Wayne.To contact the reporter on this story: Larry Liebert in Des Moines at lliebert@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Magan CraneFor 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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| When it comes to climate hypocrisy, Canada's leaders have reached a new low Posted: 05 Feb 2020 02:30 AM PST  A territory that has 0.5% of the Earth's population plans to use up nearly a third of the planet's remaining carbon budget Americans elected Donald Trump, who insisted climate change was a hoax – so it's no surprise that since taking office he's been all-in for the fossil fuel industry. There's no sense despairing; the energy is better spent fighting to remove him from office.Canada, on the other hand, elected a government that believes the climate crisis is real and dangerous – and with good reason, since the nation's Arctic territories give it a front-row seat to the fastest warming on Earth. Yet the country's leaders seem likely in the next few weeks to approve a vast new tar sands mine which will pour carbon into the atmosphere through the 2060s. They know – yet they can't bring themselves to act on the knowledge. Now that is cause for despair.The Teck mine would be the biggest tar sands mine yet: 113 square miles of petroleum mining, located just 16 miles from the border of Wood Buffalo national park. A federal panel approved the mine despite conceding that it would likely be harmful to the environment and to the land culture of Indigenous people. These giant tar sands mines (easily visible on Google Earth) are already among the biggest scars humans have ever carved on the planet's surface. But Canadian authorities ruled that the mine was nonetheless in the "public interest".Here's how Justin Trudeau, recently re-elected as Canada's prime minister, put it in a speech to cheering Texas oilmen a couple of years ago: "No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave them there." That is to say, Canada, which is 0.5% of the planet's population, plans to use up nearly a third of the planet's remaining carbon budget. Ottawa hides all this behind a series of pledges about "net-zero emissions by 2050" and so on, but they are empty promises. In the here-and-now they can't rein themselves in. There's oil in the ground and it must come out.This is painfully hard to watch because it comes as the planet has supposedly reached a turning point. A series of remarkable young people (including Canadians such as Autumn Peltier) have captured the imagination of people around the world; scientists have issued ever sterner warnings; and the images of climate destruction show up in every newspaper. Canadians can see the Australian blazes on television; they should bring back memories of the devastating forest fires that forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray, in the heart of the tar sands complex, less than four years ago.The only rational response would be to immediately stop the expansion of new fossil fuel projects. It's true that we can't get off oil and gas immediately; for the moment, oil wells continue to pump. But the Teck Frontier proposal is predicated on the idea that we'll still need vast quantities of oil in 2066, when Greta Thunberg is about to hit retirement age. If an alcoholic assured you he was taking his condition very seriously, but also laying in a 40-year store of bourbon, you'd be entitled to doubt his sincerity, or at least to note his confusion. Oil has addled the Canadian ability to do basic math: more does not equal less, and 2066 is not any time soon. An emergency means you act now.In fairness, Canada has company here. For every territory making a sincere effort to kick fossil fuels (California, Scotland) there are other capitals just as paralyzed as Ottawa. Australia's fires creep ever closer to the seat of government in Canberra, yet the prime minister, Scott Morrison, can't seem to imagine any future for his nation other than mining more coal. Australia and Canada are both rich nations, their people highly educated, but they seem unable to control the zombie momentum of fossil fuels.There's obviously something hideous about watching the Trumps and the Putins of the world gleefully shred our future. But it's disturbing in a different way to watch leaders pretend to care – a kind of gaslighting that can reduce you to numb nihilism. Trudeau, for all his charms, doesn't get to have it both ways: if you can't bring yourself to stop a brand-new tar sands mine then you're not a climate leader. * Bill McKibben is an author and Schumann distinguished scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College, Vermont. His most recent book is Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
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| Thousands of pets in Wuhan are trapped and facing starvation with their owners stranded outside the city by the coronavirus outbreak Posted: 05 Feb 2020 06:03 AM PST  An estimated 50,000 pets have been left at home in Wuhan, China, and animal-rights groups say without intervention they will face starvation.
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| 'Grey death': Louisiana police say powerful opiod can kill on contact Posted: 05 Feb 2020 01:54 PM PST  Police in Louisiana have issued a warning over 'grey death' - a powerful drug combination that can reportedly cause severe illness and even death through skin contact alone.David Spencer, a spokesperson for St Mary Parish Sheriff's Office near New Orleans, said: "The public recognises a lot of the drugs that we deal with. This is a new one."
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| Man arrested on capital murder charge in fatal shooting of two women in Texas campus dormitory Posted: 04 Feb 2020 06:37 PM PST  A man was arrested Tuesday in connection with a double murder that police say appeared to target his ex-girlfriend in a campus dormitory.
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| Why Did China's Submarine 361 Suffocate Its Own Crew? Posted: 04 Feb 2020 03:58 AM PST  You wouldn't want to be stuck inside.
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| Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific asks all staff to take unpaid leave Posted: 05 Feb 2020 12:44 AM PST  Hong Kong's flagship carrier Cathay Pacific is asking its entire workforce to take up to three weeks of unpaid leave, its CEO announced Wednesday, as the airline faces a crisis in the wake of the new coronavirus outbreak. The request lays bare desperate times at Cathay, which was hammered last year by months of political chaos and protests in Hong Kong and is now being further hurt by the fallout from the virus outbreak. In a video message to the company's 27,000 employees, airline boss Augustus Tang said they were being asked to take up to three weeks leave with no pay between March and June.
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| Trump's done with impeachment. Here are his next legal challenges. Posted: 05 Feb 2020 04:42 PM PST  Election year is packed with landmines that can cause embarrassing headlines, adverse legal rulings and other politically risky decisions for Trump.
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| A North Carolina woman used her toes to 'manipulate her cell' and dial 911 after her hands were crushed by her car Posted: 04 Feb 2020 10:37 AM PST  Alone and in "excruciating pain," the woman spent 35 minutes trying to slide her shoe off her foot. She then called 911 with her toes, officials say.
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| Ireland Goes to the Polls on Saturday. Here's Why the Stakes Are So High Posted: 05 Feb 2020 07:37 AM PST  Voters will go to the polls in Ireland on Feb. 8. Here's how the elections could reshape the country.
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| Ocean currents are speeding up faster than scientists predicted Posted: 05 Feb 2020 01:01 PM PST  Global ocean currents are speeding up more rapidly than scientists had anticipated — in part due to climate change, per a paper published Wednesday in Science Advances.The trend is "much greater than the natural variability," the paper states. Due largely to faster surface winds, 76 percent of the top 2,000 meters of Earth's oceans show an increase in intensity of circulation, based on data from the past two decades.Surging winds are a predicted symptom of climate change, but such an increase wasn't expected to happen until closer to the end of the century, reports The Washington Post. "This suggests the Earth might actually be more sensitive to climate change than our simulations can currently show," Michael McPhaden, an author of the paper and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researcher, told the Post.Accelerated ocean currents may affect jet streams, weather patterns, and the amount of heat stored in the ocean's depths, reports Science magazine.While the paper presents a "really huge increase" in acceleration, more research is needed to be certain the quickening is due to climate change, Susan Wijffels, oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told Science magazine. "This paper does highlight how ill prepared we are to truly diagnose what's going on."The paper calls for a more thorough monitoring of global ocean circulation to bring more clarity.More stories from theweek.com Trump just won the Iowa Democratic caucuses Should financial markets be freaked out by coronavirus? America is doing so much better than you think
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