| As coronavirus spreads, Biden says Trump is 'the worst possible person' to keep America safe Posted: 28 Jan 2020 12:45 PM PST  As evidence, Biden cited Trump's response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic. Earlier, Trump tweeted that "it will all work out well." Trump's potential Democratic rivals, however, are not so sure. The second is about Trump's leadership.
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| Putin pardons Israeli woman jailed in Russia on drug charges Posted: 29 Jan 2020 09:14 AM PST  Russian President Vladimir Putin has pardoned an Israeli woman who had been jailed on drug charges, the Kremlin said Wednesday. A presidential decree ordering Naama Issachar's release on "humanitarian principles" was effective immediately, the Kremlin said. The 26-year-old backpacker was arrested in April at a Moscow airport, where she was transferring en route from India to Israel.
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| Dylann Roof appeals death sentence for massacre at South Carolina black church Posted: 29 Jan 2020 05:33 AM PST  "Roof's crime was tragic, but this Court can have no confidence in the jury's verdict," says his appeal, filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday. A jury found Roof guilty of 33 federal charges, including hate crimes resulting in death, for the shocking mass shooting at the landmark Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in June 2015. Roof dismissed his defense attorneys just before trial and represented himself during jury selection.
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| GOP Rep. Doug Collins launched a Senate bid and the Republican Party was not thrilled Posted: 29 Jan 2020 11:41 AM PST  Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., announced his Senate bid Wednesday, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee was far from pleased.
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| China demands an apology from a newspaper for a satirical cartoon of a Chinese flag with coronavirus particles Posted: 28 Jan 2020 12:31 PM PST  China is outraged with a Danish newspaper for publishing a satirical cartoon of a Chinese flag with coronavirus particles in place of its stars.
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| Doorbell Cam Captures Chilling Audio of Kobe Bryant’s Crash Posted: 29 Jan 2020 04:17 AM PST  Chilling audio of Kobe Bryant's helicopter coming down in California was captured by a doorbell cam. Local resident Ronna Leavitt has provided the 43-second clip to investigators in which the Sikorsky S-76B chopper can be heard flying above her housing complex in Calabasas before it crashes with a thud into the surrounding hillside and the recording falls silent. Leavitt told ABC7 that the helicopter had flown above her housing complex and performed a U-turn before it crashed into the hillside, killing Bryant and eight others, including his daughter Gianna.Meanwhile, crash investigators have said that the chopper did not have a terrain awareness and warning system that could have provided critical information to the pilot about the mountainous area.The Federal Aviation Administration recommends the equipment on new choppers, and The Wall Street Journal quoted industry estimates of retrofitting the system at between $25,000 and $40,000. The helicopter was also not equipped with a flight data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder, according to reports.Federal investigators said the helicopter lost communications with air-traffic controllers when it climbed to 2,300 feet as the pilot attempted to avoid a cloud layer. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials said the helicopter then began a descending left turn and crashed into the hills of Calabasas at roughly 1,085 feet above sea level. The chopper was descending at more than 2,000 feet a minute in the moments before impact."Preliminary information is that the helicopter was in one piece when it impacted the terrain," a spokesperson told the Journal. "This is a pretty steep descent at high speed."Bill English, an investigator-in-charge with the NTSB, said, "It's important to realize that there's not one hill. It's a ravine with undulating terrain, so the small outcropping that had the main impact in it, the main impact was about 20 to 30 feet from the top of that small hill. But there are actually other higher hills surrounding it."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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| McConnell Tells Caucus They Lack the Votes to Block Impeachment Witnesses Posted: 28 Jan 2020 03:23 PM PST  Senator Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) on Tuesday said he doesn't have the votes to block a resolution to allow witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial, according to multiple reports.McConnell made the admission in talks with Senate Republicans after President Trump's defense team concluded its arguments.If the Senate votes to summon witnesses, Democrats will likely attempt to call on former White House national security adviser John Bolton to give testimony in the trial. On Sunday the New York Times reported that Bolton wrote in the manuscript of his upcoming book that Trump had conditioned aid to Ukraine on that country's commitment to conduct investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden.Republicans may react to a subpoena of Bolton by summoning Hunter Biden and the government whistleblower, whose complaint sparked the impeachment inquiry, to testify."Those are the ones that I want to call," Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said on Monday of Hunter Biden and the whistleblower, despite having told reporters on Friday that he would vote against summoning Hunter Biden. "If we add to the record, we are going to do it completely."Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) concurred during an interview on Fox & Friends."My view is this — if the Senate decides to call witnesses later this week . . . we need to hear from Hunter Biden, he is right at the center of this," Hawley said. "What was he doing in Ukraine? What was he doing with Burisma?"Hawley also wrote on Twitter, "if the Senate is going to call witnesses, then I will ask to hear from Adam Schiff, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden & the whistleblower, at a minimum."
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| Historians: Sobibor death camp photos may feature Demjanjuk Posted: 28 Jan 2020 07:35 AM PST  Historians have presented a collection of photos kept by the deputy commander of the Nazis' Sobibor death camp that they say appears to include images of John Demjanjuk, the retired Ohio auto worker who was tried in Germany for his alleged time as a Sobibor guard. The collection unveiled Tuesday at Berlin's Topography of Terror museum comprises 361 photos as well as written documents illustrating Johann Niemann's career. Niemann was the deputy commander of Sobibor from September 1942 until he was killed on Oct. 14, 1943, in an uprising by Jewish inmates.
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| Bernie Sanders Surges to Lead in California, Propelled by Liberals Posted: 28 Jan 2020 05:33 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Bernie Sanders has not only taken the lead in several recent surveys of voters in Iowa, which holds the first in the nation caucuses on Monday, but he has also pushed to the head of the Democratic field in delegate-rich California.The Vermont senator, who has had strong support from Latinos and young voters, has been propelled into the top spot by voters who self-identify as "very liberal," according to the latest UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies poll, conducted for the Los Angeles Times.Sanders has support from 26% of voters likely to cast ballots in the state's March 3 Democratic primary, drawing support from liberals largely at the expense of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren is now backed by 20% of likely voters, which is down from earlier surveys showing she had 22% in November and 29% in September in the state.The rest of California's likely primary voters remain divided among several candidates, which has left the party's front-runner nationally, Vice President Joe Biden, with only 15% in the most populous state.That cut-off is important in California because, under the state Democratic Party rules, delegates are awarded only to those candidates with at least 15% of the vote statewide or in individual congressional districts. The remaining candidates in the poll are all below that, with former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 7%, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at 6%, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota at 5%, businessman Andrew Yang at 4% and billionaire Tom Steyer at 2%.Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.The UC Berkeley IGS poll was conducted online in English and Spanish from Jan. 15-21. The estimated margin of error for likely Democratic voters is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.This post is part of Campaign Update, our live coverage from the 2020 campaign trail.To contact the author of this story: Elizabeth Wasserman in Washington at ewasserman2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.netFor 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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| Trump lawyers contradict one another as they conclude first phase of impeachment trial Posted: 28 Jan 2020 03:45 PM PST  The president's top White House lawyer has repeatedly told the Senate Trump did nothing wrong in withholding aid to Ukraine, even as other lawyers on his defense team directly contradicted that assertion over the last two days.
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| Donald Trump is ‘just wrong’ about the economy, says Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz Posted: 29 Jan 2020 12:20 PM PST  In a newly released interview, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz disagreed with Trump's contention that the economy has lifted up working-class Americans.
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| Suspected associate of El Chapo's sons flees Mexico City prison Posted: 29 Jan 2020 02:31 PM PST ![Suspected associate of El Chapo's sons flees Mexico City prison]( "Suspected associate of El Chapo's sons flees Mexico City prison") Three prisoners wanted by the United States for their links to drug trafficking, including an alleged associate of the sons of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, on Wednesday escaped from a Mexico City prison, authorities said. Mexico and the United States, its most important trade partner, have been looking for ways to address the escalating security situation as well as clamp down on illegal drug and arms trade. Mexican authorities said the prisoners escaped from a penitentiary in southern Mexico City on Wednesday morning, possibly with the help of prison staff.
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| Pentagon identifies 2 Air Force airmen killed in Afghanistan Posted: 29 Jan 2020 02:40 PM PST  The Pentagon on Wednesday released the names of two Air Force officers killed in the crash of their Bombardier E-11A electronic surveillance plane in Afghanistan. Voss was assigned to Air Combat Command headquarters at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia. Phaneuf was assigned to the 37th Bomb Squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota.
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| The Trump administration failed to convince the UK to ditch Huawei and its other allies aren't listening either Posted: 29 Jan 2020 02:57 AM PST  The UK defied Trump to permit Huawei limited access to its 5G network.
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| 11 Beautiful Examples of When Historic and Modern Architecture Come Together Posted: 29 Jan 2020 09:50 AM PST |
| African nations take first measures to stop spread of Chinese virus Posted: 29 Jan 2020 10:58 AM PST  African states, including the continent's biggest economy Nigeria, on Wednesday said they had begun to introduce measures aimed at stopping the spread of the new coronavirus. No verified infection has been reported to date in sub-Saharan Africa, but elsewhere countries have stopped flights to China and airlifted their citizens out of the area where the virus emerged. People arriving from China or any country with a "major outbreak" of the disease are advised to stay at home for at least two weeks if they develop any symptoms, according to the advisory issued by Health Minister Osagie Ehanire.
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| This Picture Is North Korea, China, Iran and Russia's Worst Military Nightmare Posted: 28 Jan 2020 09:00 PM PST  Imagine 52 F-35s coming at you.
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| Erdogan Warns Russia Risks Split With Turkey on Syria Attack Posted: 29 Jan 2020 04:31 AM PST ![Erdogan Warns Russia Risks Split With Turkey on Syria Attack]( "Erdogan Warns Russia Risks Split With Turkey on Syria Attack") (Bloomberg) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced rare recent criticism of Russia for its conduct in Syria, saying his "patience is running out" over the ongoing bombing of opposition Islamist forces in Idlib province."As of now, Russia is loyal to neither Astana nor Sochi" agreements, Erdogan told reporters on his way back from a visit to African countries, according to Anadolu Agency.He was referring to accords struck by the two countries in recent years to curtail fighting in northern Syria. Russia and Turkey have stepped up their cooperation in the Syrian conflict while finding themselves on opposite sides of other Middle Eastern conflicts, such as the one in Libya."If we are loyal partners, Russia will make its position clear," Erdogan said. "Either it will have a different process with Syria, or it will have a different process with Turkey. There's no other way."The comments follow reports that Syrian government forces, backed by Russia, have taken control of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, the biggest town in Idlib province. The strategically important area last changed hands in 2012, Anadolu reported on Wednesday.Russia responded to Erdogan's comments by saying it's committed to strictly implementing its obligations on Syria, the state-run Tass news service reported, citing the Foreign Ministry in Moscow.Millions of Syrians fleeing fighting in Syria over the years have headed for Turkey, and officials there have long warned of another major exodus as combat escalates in Idlib.(Updates with Russian Foreign Ministry in sixth paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Firat Kozok in Ankara at fkozok@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Paul AbelskyFor 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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| Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is open to calling Hunter Biden as an impeachment witness Posted: 29 Jan 2020 06:14 AM PST  Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) isn't scared, and he doesn't think his fellow Democrats should be either.Manchin on Wednesday suggested he's open to calling Hunter Biden as a witness in the impeachment trial. "Being afraid to put anybody that might have pertinent information is wrong, no matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican," he said during in an interview with MSNBC's Willie Geist. "If it's relevant then it should be there."> Senator Manchin says he's open to calling Hunter Biden... https://t.co/gmJyr6GbFX> > — Robert Costa (@costareports) January 29, 2020Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, has been present in President Trump's impeachment saga since the beginning. It was, after all, the Ukrainian gas company upon whose board he sat that Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate. Recently, there's been some theorizing that if former National Security Adviser John Bolton is brought into testify during the Senate trial, Republicans could counter by bringing in the younger Biden.Democrats have largely decried the idea, but Manchin doesn't appear to share the majority of his party's perspective. He did, however, say he thinks Hunter Biden would be able to "clear himself" if he does testify.More stories from theweek.com It's 2020 and women are exhausted Did John Bolton actually do Trump a favor? The 3 kinds of Republicans that Bolton's testimony would reveal
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| Federal agency says it doesn't track foreign spending at Trump Hotel Posted: 28 Jan 2020 05:26 PM PST  The federal government doesn't know how much money foreign governments and entities have spent at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, a GSA official testified Tuesday.
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| Kobe Bryant death: Nearby door cams capture noise of fatal helicopter crash Posted: 29 Jan 2020 09:46 AM PST  Door cams from the neighbourhood adjacent to the site of the crash that killed NBA legend Kobe Bryant have captured audio of the helicopter's final seconds.Google Nest devices on the doors of homes in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas recorded the sound of the rotor blades of the twin-engine Sikorsky S-76B.
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| Mitt Romney violated Senate rules by drinking chocolate milk Posted: 29 Jan 2020 04:03 AM PST  Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, was caught drinking chocolate milk out of a bottle on the Senate floor on Tuesday afternoon — a breach of the Senate impeachment trial rules.
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| Goldman Says Market Volatility Too Low as Sanders Rises in Polls Posted: 28 Jan 2020 09:26 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Investors unnerved by Elizabeth Warren's rising poll numbers last year seem remarkably blase at the rising prospects for Bernie Sanders, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s global head of market strategies."The market thinks that his ability to win against Trump is significantly lower than Warren's ability to win against Trump -- even though there is nothing in the actual polls that would tell you that is right," said Goldman's Brian Friedman. The outcome is "as unknown and uncertain as ever. Vol is just too low."Warren and Sanders are two of the top-tier candidates vying to become the Democratic party's nominee to run against Trump in November. When Warren's odds on betting site PredictIt hit a peak of 52% back in October, some on Wall Street were gripped by fears about the Massachusetts senator's perceived anti-business policy platform.Warren's chances have since crashed to under 10%. Sanders, a senator from Vermont, has seen surging odds, but there's been no similar wave of concern among investors -- despite the potential that his policies would be to the left of Warren's, Friedman said at a briefing in Sydney Wednesday.Investors overall are telling Goldman they strongly expect Trump to win re-election, given a solid economy and the advantage of incumbency, Friedman said. Even so, his narrow margins of victory in rust-belt states in 2016 suggests the potential for surprises, he said.Morgan Stanley Says Economy Can't Promise Trump Re-ElectionSanders rose to 21% support among Democrats and those who lean Democratic in the latest Quinnipiac University national poll, behind former Vice President Joe Biden at 26% and ahead of Warren on 15%."The people who control money in New York, L.A. or London -- they just have this opinion that's really unfounded by the polling data in the states that will ultimately decide the election," Friedman said.Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg placed fourth in the Quinnipiac survey, with 8%. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.To contact the reporters on this story: Garfield Reynolds in Sydney at greynolds1@bloomberg.net;Adam Haigh in Sydney at ahaigh1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Cudmore at mcudmore8@bloomberg.net, Christopher Anstey, Cormac MullenFor 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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| Parnas Lawyer: Giuliani Delivered Graham Letter Calling for Sanctions on Ukrainian Officials Posted: 29 Jan 2020 01:25 AM PST  In late 2018, Rudy Giuliani said he delivered an unusual missive to Sen. Lindsey Graham, according to the lawyer of one of his ex-associates: a letter calling for sanctions on a host of Ukrainian government officials, including one widely viewed in the West as a brave reformer and another who helmed the company where Hunter Biden was a board member.Joseph Bondy, the attorney for Lev Parnas, an indicted Florida businessman involved in the U.S.-Ukraine saga, told The Daily Beast that Giuliani showed his client the letter and told him he delivered it to Sen. Graham (the letter misspelled the South Carolina Republican's first name as "Lingsey"). Bondy said Giuliani also showed Parnas a second, similar letter addressed to Sigal Mandelker, who at the time was a top official at the Treasury Department. The letters, which The Daily Beast reviewed, claim that an eclectic mix of Ukrainian political figures and businesspeople were part of an alleged "organized crime syndicate." The letters claim that the individuals were "actively involved in the siphoning of funds appropriated by the American government for aid to Ukraine." And they claim that the alleged crime syndicate used those funds to buy black-market military parts from a Russian company under U.S. sanctions. All the while, they say, Ukraine's then-prosecutor general (Giuliani ally Yuriy Lutsenko) couldn't fight the crime because then President Petro Poroshenko wouldn't let him take the case to court."It concerns me, as should any fellow American, that a taxpayer's money is rudely been stolen in Ukraine [sic]," reads the letter to Mandelker.The letter-writer introduces himself in the letter addressed to Mandelker as a Ukraine-born U.S. citizen named Michael Guralnik who graduated from the Soviet Military Academy and was "a 10-year veteran of the Soviet Army." The letter to Graham, meanwhile, also bears Guralnik's name but contains no introduction. It arrived a month before Giuliani tried to help former Ukrainian top prosecutor Viktor Shokin travel to the U.S. and meet with Graham, Bondy said. A few weeks before the date of the Guralnik letter, Giuliani sent Graham a letter of his own asking his staff to help three unnamed Ukrainians get visas so they could come to the U.S. and share information about the Bidens. The State Department did not give Shokin a visa. The letters say that the "only way" to "stop this syndicate" is to sanction the individuals involved. Both letters list 12 people, along with phone numbers for some of them. Included on the list are Mykola Zlochevskiy, the head of the scandal-plagued Ukrainian company where Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden was a board member; Valeriya Gontareva, the head of the National Bank of Ukraine from mid-2014 to mid-2017; and Kateryna Rozhkova, who was her deputy. Graham and Giuliani did not respond to repeated requests for comment, and it was not immediately clear if lawmakers ever even considered the sanctions. A spokesperson for Graham did not respond to a request for comment. Mandelker did not comment on the record for this report. When contacted, Guralnik hung up the phone and texted, "Do not call any more."The inclusion of Gontareva and Rozhkova's names is notable. In 2016, Gontareva oversaw the Ukrainian government's decision to seize control of a bank that belonged to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. Ukrainian officials alleged that Kolomoisky and his allies had misappropriated billions from the bank. Kolomoisky has pushed to regain control of the bank, even as the FBI has investigated him for financial crimes. And in the wake of her decision, Gontareva has faced death threats and danger. Her home was vandalized, and someone left a coffin with her likeness inside it outside the Central Bank offices, as The Washington Post reported. Years after the nationalization of the bank, the danger persists. In August 2019, she was hit by a car in London and hospitalized. The next month, her home in Ukraine was burned down, per the Kyiv Post. Gontareva's fight to reform Ukraine's financial sector won her devoted allies in the West, who saw her as one of Kyiv's few genuine reformers. Kolomoisky, meanwhile, is an intimidating figure to many in Ukraine, and some have alleged he has ordered contract killings. He also funded a private militia that fought Russian-backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine. His connection to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also long raised eyebrows; the TV show that boosted Zelensky's public profile aired on a TV channel that Kolomoisky owns, and one of Kolomoisky's former lawyers is now a senior aide to Zelensky (Giuliani and U.S. officials have raised concerns with Zelensky's team about that aide, Andriy Bohdan). Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the government watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Daily Beast that the Guralnik letters mean Giuliani should answer more questions about his Ukraine work."While we can't obviously speak to the veracity of these claims, it does seem to look more and more like Rudy Giuliani is incredibly deeply involved with some seriously shady business in Ukraine and we need more information, not only on his activities, but his activities and those of his associates on behalf of or benefiting Donald Trump," he said. "As bad as these things look on their face, they're so much worse if you consider the involvement of the president of the United States. There is so little we know, but enough to know that we need to know a lot more." 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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| Mitch McConnell just said he might not have the Republican votes to block witnesses from testifying in Trump's impeachment trial Posted: 28 Jan 2020 03:35 PM PST  McConnell reportedly compiled a list of "yes," "no," and "maybe" votes but didn't show the count to his fellow senators.
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| UAE confirms 4 Chinese tourists have virus, first in Mideast Posted: 28 Jan 2020 09:34 PM PST  A family of four Chinese tourists in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday became the first cases in the Mideast of a new Chinese virus that causes flu-like symptoms, with an Emirati doctor saying the first to fall ill only showed symptoms after over a week on vacation. Dr. Hussein al-Rand, an assistant undersecretary at the UAE's Ministry of Health and Prevention, told The Associated Press that there was no reason to panic over virus.
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| Biden Says He's Getting Old—So His VP Should Be 'Capable of Immediately Being a President' Posted: 29 Jan 2020 05:03 AM PST  'I'm an old guy,' Biden admitted.
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| Germany walks away from $2.5 billion purchase of US Navy’s Triton spy drones Posted: 27 Jan 2020 11:17 PM PST  Berlin will instead buy modified business jets untethered from drone-specific airspace restrictions over Europe.
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| Fotis Dulos, who is accused of killing his wife, is in critical condition after an apparent suicide attempt Posted: 29 Jan 2020 05:55 AM PST  Farmington Police found Fotis Dulos unresponsive while conducting a welfare check Tuesday, after he failed to show up for a court date.
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| Japan confirms virus in man who had not been to China Posted: 28 Jan 2020 02:13 AM PST  Japanese authorities said Tuesday a man with no recent travel to China has contracted the novel strain of coronavirus -- apparently after driving tourists visiting from Wuhan, where a deadly outbreak began. The man in his sixties from Nara in western Japan drove two groups of Wuhan tourists earlier in January and was hospitalised on Saturday with flu-like symptoms, the health ministry said. Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said the country had confirmed two new cases, bringing the total so far in Japan to six.
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| Johnson to Hail Hope and Opportunity of Brexit Just as U.K. Leaves EU Posted: 29 Jan 2020 09:46 AM PST ![Johnson to Hail Hope and Opportunity of Brexit Just as U.K. Leaves EU]( "Johnson to Hail Hope and Opportunity of Brexit Just as U.K. Leaves EU") (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will make a speech to the nation at 10 p.m. on Friday -- an hour before the country leaves the European Union.After three years of political turmoil over Brexit, Johnson said finally leaving the bloc will be "a great moment for our country". It will be a time of "hope and opportunity" and a chance to come together, he said in a Facebook broadcast released by his office.The prime minister said he will mark the moment in a way that's "mindful" of the nation's divisions over breaking with the bloc. His Conservative Party has spent decades divided over the U.K.'s relationship with the EU and even Johnson's own family has been split. Last year his brother Jo quit the cabinet over the premier's Brexit plans."I will be celebrating in a way that I hope is respectful of the scale of the event, that does justice to the astonishing feat that Britain has accomplished, but also is mindful or everybody's feelings about what we are doing," he said.To contact the reporters on this story: Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net;Olivia Konotey-Ahulu in London at okonoteyahul@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Thomas Penny, Robert HuttonFor 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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| Is It Time to Stop Using Avast Antivirus Software? Posted: 29 Jan 2020 09:40 AM PST  Though data collection is a fact of life these days, many consumers were surprised to discover that Avast—maker of antivirus software designed to protect computers from security threats—has been ...
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| Lev Parnas has a ticket to attend President Trump's impeachment trial. But his court-ordered ankle monitor has gotten in the way. Posted: 28 Jan 2020 05:43 PM PST  Ex-Trump supporter Lev Parnas wanted to attend the impeachment trial. But a judge won't let him remove his ankle monitor, a condition of his bail.
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| 'It's hysteria': Asian students at Arizona State University say they're being treated differently after a case of the Wuhan coronavirus was confirmed there Posted: 29 Jan 2020 03:21 PM PST  A case of the coronavirus was confirmed at Arizona State University on Sunday, and Asian students have felt backlash ever since.
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| The Pentagon Claims China Doesn't Have the Means to Seize Taiwan (Yet) Posted: 29 Jan 2020 04:00 AM PST  Could it be?
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| Ex-children's doctor charged with abusing adoptive daughter Posted: 29 Jan 2020 12:58 PM PST ![Ex-children's doctor charged with abusing adoptive daughter]( "Ex-children's doctor charged with abusing adoptive daughter") A former emergency room doctor at Children's Hospital Wisconsin, charged with physically abusing a newborn he was adopting with his wife, denies he did anything wrong and wants the case dismissed next month. The case is receiving tremendous scrutiny by the medical community around the county, with physicians disagreeing on what exactly caused the injuries to the adoptive daughter of 39-year-old John M. Cox and his wife, Sadie Dobrozsi, a pediatric oncologist at Children's. They have hired more than a dozen experts to question the conclusions from Children's physicians, whose initial investigation led to Cox's charges eight moths ago. NBC News first reported Cox's story Monday.
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| Mexican Narcos, More Brazen by the Day, Land Coke Plane on a Highway and Shoot a General Posted: 29 Jan 2020 01:37 AM PST  CALI, Colombia—Talk about a tough commute. Traffic was backed up for miles early Monday morning in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo after drug traffickers landed a twin engine prop plane on Highway 307, near the resort town of Bacalar.Mexican Police Chief Arrested in Mormon Massacre CaseThe flight—which originated in South America and had been tracked by radar since entering Mexican airspace—touched down at about 4:30 a.m. A task force led by the senior commander of military operations in that state moved out to intercept.When soldiers worked their way through the traffic jam caused by the plane they were met by a light cavalry force consisting of some 50 vehicles belonging to well-armed, ground-based accomplices who had been waiting for the delivery. The sicarios had also cut down roadside trees and signs to create a makeshift runway for the aircraft. By the time the army showed up, the traffickers already were hustling to offload more than a half ton of cocaine.In the pitched battle that followed, Mexican troops came under fire from military-grade weapons, including a high-powered .50 caliber sniper rifle. When the firefight was over the general in charge had been hit, his driver killed, and at least two more soldiers wounded. Two suspects were apprehended nearby. A portion of the contraband cargo, the .50 cal, a few other rifles, and two vehicles also were seized. The pilots and other traffickers, along with an unknown quantity of narcotics, apparently escaped.To make room for more marching powder, the plane had been gutted of all seats save the pilots'. Authorities retrieved 26 individually wrapped packages of cocaine in the raid, altogether weighing some 600 kilograms (1,320 pounds). Given that the average U.S. street price for the drug is about $96 per gram, that makes the captured haul worth some $57,600,000 dollars.Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a rather laconic statement later that day about the "confrontation," confirming that the raid was indeed led by General José Luis Vásquez Araiza, who heads up the 34th military zone, and that "unfortunately they shot him." Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquín González took to Twitter to offer his condolences to the soldiers and their families and to praise their "hard work and courage ensuring the security of Quintana Roo."Boilerplate rhetoric aside, security in Quintana Roo is in relatively short supply of late, as cartels carry out turf wars in areas once safe for tourists. The Associated Press reported six people were killed in drug-related violence over the weekend in the popular beach town of Cancún, farther north on the same highway where the plane landed. This once placid region in southeast Mexico, near the border with Belize, is now part of a major smuggling corridor, which led to Quintana Roo's murder rate nearly tripling in 2018. Though homicide rates fell slightly in 2019, decapitated and dismembered victims still draw unwelcome attention from the press, stoking fears that the steady stream of foreign visitors, so crucial to the local economy, might be scared away.The image of a drug plane blocking traffic on a national highway in broad daylight has drawn eyeballs throughout the hemisphere. But the incident also highlights just how bold and fearless the cartels have become. * * *A GRIM NEW STANDARD* * *Most cocaine that enters the United States from South America makes a stopover in Mexico. It comes by land, sea, and air, in shipping containers and submarines and modified planes like the one captured this week. Cocaine production in the Andean nations is soaring, especially in Colombia, which now produces about 70 percent of the global supply. To enhance their profits, Mexican cartels have recently taken to importing raw coca paste and refining it in their own country, so as not to have to pay middlemen to cook it on site. As heroin and marijuana have steadily declined in value, thanks to synthetic opioids and legalization respectively, cocaine remains a more stable and valuable commodity—making the cartels "desperate" to obtain it, according to Robert Bunker, a security analyst with the U.S. Army War College.Why the Drug War Can't Be Won—Cartel Corruption Goes All the Way to the TopWhat Bunker describes as "the cartels' increasing brazenness" is also fueled by their growing power, it seems, to get away with just about anything, including colluding with senior Mexican officials. In the last month, U.S. prosecutors have charged two high-level Mexican national police officers with taking millions in bribes. "They have become so used to operating with such high levels of impunity that this is becoming the new standard of their activities," Bunker told The Daily Beast.In reference to the airborne smuggling episode in Quintana Roo, a high-ranking source within one of Mexico's cartels (who requested anonymity for security reasons) described the operation as daring to the point of being foolhardy."I am surprised that a group with access to a plane and that amount of cocaine would land on a road instead of a more secure location," the source said. He also said the tactics were "sloppy" and suggested the lack of "lookouts" and "exit routes" indicated the traffickers might be too cocky for their own good. "There should have been blockades ready in case they were under surveillance," he said.Bunker said one of the more likely culprits behind the highway-as-tarmac plot is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel [CJNG]. Now one of the nation's most powerful crime groups, the CJNG has been encroaching on Quintana Roo for the last few years, driving the surge in violence there.Bunker also said the presence of a .50 caliber rifle and other assault weapons is in line with the CJNG's paramilitary profile. Additionally, one of the two men arrested at the scene was a Jalisco native."The cartel unit was more than willing to go toe-to-toe with the Mexican armed forces in a tactical engagement," said Bunker. That's also in line with CJNG's aggressive behavior, as the cartel has also shot down army helicopters and attacked military convoys in the past.* * *TROUBLE IN PARADISE* * *Quintana Roo isn't the only tourist hotspot suffering from new and unusually high levels of violence in Mexico. Once the playground of Hollywood elites, Acapulco is now among the most dangerous cities in the Americas. Tijuana, on the border with California, was the site of a record-breaking 2,518 murders in 2018. Even Mexico City, long thought to be the safe-zone free from organized crime, has been rocked by gun battles among armed groups. Murders in Mexico reached an all-time high last year, with more than 35,500 victims.Part of the spike in killings is due to the cartel world fragmenting, meaning no one group can maintain order and hegemony—what Bunker calls a "Pax Mafiosa"—over its territory.Up until a few years ago, places like Quintana Roo had been relatively exempt from narco violence because government officials and powerful business owners—including wealthy investors from within established criminal organizations—wanted to keep the tourist dollars rolling in. But today's new breed of next-gen narcos like the CJNG have shown themselves all too willing to challenge that hierarchy. In Quintana Roo, the move of CJNG into tourist safe havens "is slowly changing the 'off-limits' rules that once existed," Bunker said."These groups do not fear kicking over the old economic interests in Mexico or the power structure that exists behind them."The cartel insider agreed that the security situation in places like Quintana Roo could continue to worsen. "The narcos are getting bolder," he said, "and it isn't going to get better."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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| I thought Bernie's Iowa numbers seemed unrealistically high. Then I saw his rallies Posted: 28 Jan 2020 03:00 AM PST  Pundits keep warning about a Sanders 'ceiling' – but here in the midwest he looks strong and getting stronger Three political rallies in a small north-west Iowa town over the weekend convinced me that the polls showing Bernie Sanders leading among likely caucus-goers have it about right.Some 400 people packed into a ballroom in Storm Lake, Iowa, on Sunday to hear Michael Moore, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the disheveled senator from Vermont raise the roof for a political revolution.Polls going into the weekend showed Sanders with 25% of the likely crowd at the caucuses on 3 February. Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren trail closely, while Amy Klobuchar is building support late and Andrew Yang is getting some interest.Bernie had momentum on Sunday. People were hooting and hollering and clapping for Moore, the documentarian, when he said the rich will have a harder time getting to heaven than a camel through the eye of a needle. He cited Paul's letter to the Corinthians urging unity over factionalism. The revival meeting lapped it up.The night before, Buttigieg appeared at Buena Vista University to a crowd of 220 with half the enthusiasm of the Sanders affair. He spoke about healing wounds, too, but nobody was going wild. His biggest applause line came when he complained that "everybody needs a second job".After Sanders's rally in the afternoon, Yang made his first appearance in Storm Lake to a crowd of about 100. He had them laughing, and got them worrying about artificial intelligence eliminating 40,000 manufacturing jobs in Iowa. Truckers may be a thing of the past. It got everyone's attention. The New York businessman has his facts and figures – that Amazon wiped out 30% of our state's retail business, and that the erosion of local news is undermining democracy – down into a compelling narrative about how capital and technology conspire to leave huge swaths of America behind.Yang's solution, as articulated, is to give everyone $1,000 per month, and to take back democracy. He thinks he can "rewire the economy" to bring something back to those lost places in the swing states where jobs, people and prospects keep getting drained to the coasts."We are in the midst of the greatest economic transformation in our nation's history," Yang said to his largest applause.In fact, that may explain why Sanders is leading."We're going to win because working people are tired of being ignored, working two or three jobs," Sanders proclaimed to heads nodding and amens.The ballroom echoed in boos when Sanders detailed how 12 years ago "Congress bailed out crooks on Wall Street, and then Trump gave them a trillion dollars in tax breaks". And Amazon pays no tax. Boo!A man up front said his health insurance premiums are $1,400 per month.Sanders said that the average $60,000 household in Iowa would pay that much per year on healthcare taxes with Medicare for All. No premiums. No deductibles. They cheered harder.Healthcare is the top issue cited by likely caucus-goers in a state where you can choose Wellmark Blue Cross or Wellmark Blue Cross.Climate change is the number two issue."It is real, and it is underestimated in its speed and severity. Australia, a beautiful country, is on fire," Sanders thundered as the crowd roared back. "Crop production will decline. Climate refugees are around the world in the millions, leading to more war. And we have a president who denies it all."The Smith sisters, Paula and Lou, buried their mother with a Hillary Clinton sticker a few years ago. They fell into the Bernie bandwagon at that rally. Their brother Rob was waffling among Sanders, Buttigieg, Biden and Yang.Dan Berglund said he probably will be "a banker for Bernie" as he was four years ago, but he will walk into the caucus as a Yang supporter. If Yang is not viable with the necessary 15%, he will bail to Bernie.Tim Gallagher, who works for Buena Vista University, says he might vote for any one of them, and will decide on caucus day. "A lot can happen in a week," he said.Such as: Warren was endorsed by the largest newspaper in Iowa, the Des Moines Register, on Sunday. She danced a jig on hearing the news Saturday night in Muscatine in eastern Iowa, after taking selfies with hundreds. She has an elaborate, well-tuned organization apparatus in all parts of the state that she is banking will deliver for her.So does Sanders, obviously. The front rows on Sunday were impressive in their relative diversity: people of color. Young people, old people. Conservative-looking farmers who came out to listen to a democratic socialist.Sanders said his Berniecrats knocked on an Iowa door every two seconds on Saturday – over 100,000 homes."There's nobody in the state with a stronger grassroots volunteer movement," Sanders said. "Our agenda speaks to the questions and pain that people have in their lives […] I've talked to too many people in Iowa who are making 10 to 12 bucks an hour."He lit them up again.That's what this caucus cycle is about. Sanders has tapped into a vein of frustration that elected Trump, and is getting people of all stripes to give him a look. Pundits' warnings about a Sanders "ceiling" have begun to sound like the products of people who fear his potential strength. * Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times in north-west Iowa, where he won the Pulitzer prize for editorial writing. He is a columnist for Guardian US and is author of the book Storm Lake: Change, Resilience, and Hope in America's Heartland, out this month in paperback
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| Boris Johnson Plans Law for Control of U.K. Fisheries After Brexit Posted: 28 Jan 2020 04:01 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. Boris Johnson's government plans to reclaim control over British fisheries with a law allowing the U.K. to decide who can fish in its waters and on what terms.The legislation to be published Wednesday will end current automatic rights for European Union vessels to fish in British waters, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said in an emailed statement. Under the proposal, the U.K. will leave the EU's Common Fisheries Policy at the end of December -- after an 11-month post-Brexit implementation period has ended."This new Fisheries Bill takes back control of our waters, enabling the U.K. to create a sustainable, profitable fishing industry for our coastal communities, whilst securing the long term health of British fisheries," Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers said. "Leaving the EU's failed Common Fisheries Policy is one of the most important benefits of Brexit. It means we can create a fairer system which will allow marine habitats to thrive, with new powers to support our fishing sector."Fisheries are shaping up to be one of the flash points of the U.K.'s forthcoming talks to shape its future relationship with the European Union: currently EU vessels catch more fish in British waters than British vessels do, and the EU has said any trade deal it strikes with the U.K. must be underpinned by a fisheries agreement. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on Monday suggested that if the U.K. wants access to EU markets for its financial services, it might have to allow EU fishermen to trawl British waters.Read more - What Brexit Will and Won't Change on Jan. 31: QuickTake"What happens in these things is trade-offs, you know, for example, the United Kingdom has a very strong position on fisheries," he told the BBC. "You may have to make concessions in areas like fishing in order for us, in order to get concessions from us in areas like financial services."The U.K.'s fishing industry has been in decline for decades and is relatively small -- with a catch valued at just under 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) a year. At the same time, it was championed by Brexiteers during the 2016 referendum on EU membership, and some of the areas that voted most strongly to leave the EU were coastal towns once known for their fishing fleets. One of the most bizarre moments of the referendum campaign saw U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage and rock star Bob Geldof trade insults from rival flotillas along London's River Thames.The legislation to be published Wednesday will include the following provisions:EU vessels' automatic right to fish in U.K. waters will end.Foreign boats will need U.K. licenses and will have to follow British rules.Plans will be made for every fish stock to ensure sustainable fishing.The U.K. will take into account climate change impacts on its fisheries.Fisheries plans will recognize that many fish stocks are "shared stocks" requiring negotiation with other coastal states to ensure sustainable catches.To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Robert JamesonFor 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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| Mexican president after Trump's border wall comments: 'We don't want to fight' with U.S. Posted: 29 Jan 2020 08:32 AM PST  Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Wednesday, "We don't want to fight," responding to reports that President Trump on Tuesday repeated his claim that Mexico is paying for a border wall.
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| Dershowitz: Trump’s Conduct in Leaked Bolton Book Manuscript ‘Does Not Constitute an Impeachable Offense’ Posted: 28 Jan 2020 06:21 AM PST  Alan Dershowitz, a member of President Trump's legal team, told the Senate during arguments Monday that even if President Trump explicitly orchestrated a quid pro quo by dangling Ukrainian military aid, as alleged in a leaked excerpt of John Bolton's book, that would still not constitute an impeachable offense.The New York Times reported Sunday that in his upcoming book, former national security adviser John Bolton says President Trump told him personally in August that the provision of military aid to Ukraine was contingent on the opening of an investigation into Joe Biden."Even if a president, any president, were to demand a quid pro quo as a condition to sending aid to a foreign country, obviously a highly disputed manner in this case, that would not by itself constitute an abuse of power," Dershowitz said."Quid pro quo alone is not a basis for abuse of power," the former Harvard law professor continued. "It's part of the way that foreign policy has been operated by presidents since the beginning of time. The claim that foreign policy decisions can be deemed abuses of power based on subjective opinions about mixed or sole motives, that the president was interested only in helping himself, demonstrates the dangers of employing the vague subjective and malleable phrase of abuse of power as a constitutional criteria for the removal of a president. Based on this reasoning, the new information the Times said appears in Bolton's book "would not constitute an impeachable offense," Dershowitz said.
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| No hot meals, blankets, magazines as airlines step up fight on virus Posted: 28 Jan 2020 10:38 PM PST  Passengers on some flights to China will have to make do without hot meals, blankets and newspapers, as airlines step up measures to protect crew and travelers from a new virus that has killed more than 130 in the country. Seeking to contain the spread of the coronavirus by reducing personal contact, Taiwan's China Airlines said it was encouraging passengers to bring their own drinks bottles and would limit re-usable items by replacing them with disposables. The airline and its regional arm Mandarin Airlines stopped from Monday serving hot meals and have replaced tablecloths and napkins with paper towels on cross-strait and Hong Kong flights.
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| Apple is reportedly preparing to launch a new product called 'AirTags,' which will attach to items like keys or purses to help you find them if they're lost or missing Posted: 29 Jan 2020 09:41 AM PST  The new gadget has been rumored for nearly a year, and will reportedly attach to any item and be accessible through the Find My app.
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| Attack of the Feral Horses: Will They Finish What Australia's Wildfires Started? Posted: 28 Jan 2020 11:57 PM PST  Out of control.
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