| Treasury Department sent information on Hunter Biden to expanding GOP Senate inquiry Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:18 AM PST  The Treasury Department has complied with Republican senators' requests for highly sensitive records about Hunter Biden and his associates and has turned over "'evidence' of questionable origin" to them, according to a Democrat on a committee conducting the investigation.
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| Polls show Biden's campaign could be hitting the wall Posted: 06 Feb 2020 12:42 PM PST  The state of Biden's campaign is far shakier than his longtime lead in the national polls would suggest. In fact, it may already be on its last legs.
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| Officials: TSA agent tricked traveler into baring herself Posted: 07 Feb 2020 07:54 AM PST  A federal Transportation Security Administration agent tricked a traveler into twice showing him her breasts as she went through security at one of the world's busiest airports, California's attorney said. Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Johnathon Lomeli, 22, was working at Los Angeles International Airport in June when he used fraud or deceit to falsely imprison the woman. Lomeli was arrested early Thursday at his home.
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| Death of Chinese doctor fuels anger, demands for change Posted: 07 Feb 2020 02:29 AM PST  The death of a whistleblowing doctor whose early warnings about China's new coronavirus outbreak were suppressed by the police has unleashed a wave of anger at the government's handling of the crisis -- and bold demands for more freedom. Ophthalmologist Li Wenliang was among a group of people who sounded the alarm about the virus in late December, only to be reprimanded and censored by the authorities in central Hubei province. After Li's death was confirmed early Friday, the 34-year-old was lionised as a hero on social media, while officials were vilified for letting the epidemic spiral into a national health crisis instead of listening to the doctor.
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| 'I'm the sheriff, who are you?': Sheriff stops fake cop car in its tracks Posted: 07 Feb 2020 12:22 PM PST  Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard noticed something unusual about what he thought was a police car, but turned out to be a copycat.
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| Orange County Has Released More Than 2,000 Criminal Illegal Immigrants in Recent Years Due to California’s Sanctuary Law Posted: 06 Feb 2020 06:43 AM PST  Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes released data this week showing how California's SB54 sanctuary law allowed for over 2,000 illegal immigrants with outstanding ICE detainers to be released from custody over the last two years, with 411 of those later rearrested for additional charges.Barnes's data drew praise from acting ICE Director Matthew Albence, who released a statement Wednesday saying that "this is exactly what ICE has said time and again.""These policies do nothing but ensure that criminals are released back into the community, where many re-offend, instead of being turned over to ICE," Albence said. "These are preventable crimes, and more importantly, preventable victims. As the data released by Sheriff Barnes clearly demonstrates, all communities are safer when local law enforcement works with ICE."California's SB 54 restricts law enforcement from notifying, transferring, and communicating with ICE regarding certain offenders. The Trump administration has petitioned the Supreme Court to strike down the statuteBarnes's data shows that in 2019, 1,015 illegal immigrants were released from Orange County Jail with outstanding ICE detainers, with 238 of those — over 23 percent — later rearrested on additional charges. In 2018, a total of 1,106 inmates were released without notification given to ICE, and 173 of those ended up being rearrested by local law enforcement.Barnes said the data proved that "SB 54 has made our community less safe" and that "the two-year social science experiment with sanctuary laws must end." He also slammed the policy as leaving police unable "to protect our immigrant community.""The law has resulted in new crimes because my deputies were unable to communicate with their federal partners about individuals who committed serious offenses and present a threat to our community if released," he said.
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| Elizabeth Smart says she was sexually assaulted by passenger on Delta flight Posted: 06 Feb 2020 10:51 AM PST  Elizabeth Smart has revealed she was sexually assaulted on a Delta flight by a fellow passenger last summer.On Thursday, Smart, who has advocated on behalf of kidnapping victims after she was abducted and sexually assaulted at 14, told CBS This Morning's Gayle King about the incident.
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| Pelosi calls the speech by Trump she tore up a 'manifesto of mistruths' Posted: 06 Feb 2020 09:50 AM PST  Two days after ripping up her copy of his State of the Union speech, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore into President Trump.
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| Senate Report Criticizes Response to Russian Meddling and Partly Blames McConnell Posted: 06 Feb 2020 12:00 PM PST  WASHINGTON -- Republican congressional leaders' refusal to publicly acknowledge Russian election interference in 2016 contributed to a watered-down response by the Obama administration in the midst of the presidential campaign, a Senate report released Thursday found.Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. and the Senate majority leader, reacted skeptically after receiving an intelligence briefing in September 2016 about the Russian interference, a former Obama administration official said in the report. "You security people should be careful that you're not getting used," McConnell told Lisa Monaco, the White House homeland security adviser under President Barack Obama, at the time, according to the report.The bulk of the report focuses its criticism on the Obama administration and the "heavily politicized environment" that prevented a more forceful response to the Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. But the inclusion of McConnell's skepticism in a report from a Republican-led Senate committee could give the accusations new life.Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden, have previously accused McConnell of stopping the Obama administration from speaking out more forcefully against Russian interference. McConnell has long denied those allegations, pointing to a bipartisan letter that congressional leaders released in late September 2016.The response to Russia's meddling presented a difficult political calculus for McConnell: A public acknowledgment before the election might have deterred Moscow and improved voters' trust in the outcome, but none of that was assured, and it also could have cost Republicans the White House.According to the report, numerous Obama administration officials said some members of Congress at the September 2016 briefing "resisted the administration request that a bipartisan statement be made regarding Russia being responsible for interference activities." It was at that briefing where McConnell told Monaco that she should be careful with the intelligence.The full report from the committee, led by Sen. Richard M. Burr, R-N.C., wavers on the effect any high-level U.S. government warning would have had on Russia's campaign of election sabotage. The Kremlin's operations continued even as the Obama administration began discussing them publicly, Senate investigators found."After the warnings, Russia continued its cyberactivity to include further public dissemination of stolen emails, clandestine social media-based influence operations, and penetration of state voting infrastructure through Election Day 2016," the report said.The committee said that the Obama administration was worried that its warnings to Russia could potentially undermine voters' confidence in the election, which would itself help the Russian effort. The government was also hampered by what it did not know, including the full extent of the Russian ability to manipulate election systems.The report also contained some new details about the Obama administration's efforts to halt the Russian interference campaign. The administration delivered five direct warnings to "various levels of the Russian government," including messages from Obama to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, the report said.Obama warned Putin in a note that "the kind of consequences that he could anticipate would be powerfully impactful to their economy and far exceed anything that he had seen to date," the report said, citing an interview with Susan E. Rice, Obama's national security adviser at the time.Some of the material in the report is redacted, including the timing of the first warning that many in the administration received, in the form of briefings from the CIA director at the time, John O. Brennan.Even as they presented the report's findings as bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans on the committee highlighted the still-acrimonious partisan divide over the 2016 campaign in their responses.Burr aimed his criticism at the Obama administration, accusing officials of sharing too little information inside the government."Frozen by 'paralysis of analysis,' hamstrung by constraints both real and perceived, Obama officials debated courses of action without truly taking one," Burr said.Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, blamed partisan politics in part for the flawed response in 2016 and warned that they are still a barrier to fighting Russia's continuing interference in U.S. politics."I am particularly concerned, however, that a legitimate fear raised by the Obama administration -- that warning the public of the Russian attack could backfire politically -- is still present in our hyperpartisan environment," Warner said.In a supplement to the report, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the failure in the midst of the campaign to make a "bipartisan public acknowledgment of the ongoing attack by Russia" had serious implications.Such a statement, Wyden wrote, might have prompted the news media to give more context in their reporting of disclosures by WikiLeaks about the Clinton campaign, most importantly noting "their release was part of a Russian influence campaign" designed to assist Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee."An acknowledgment of Russian influence operations, particularly operations intended to help Donald Trump, would have reflected poorly on the candidate and his campaign," Wyden wrote. "But that should not have been a reason for the administration and members of Congress to withhold from the public warning of an ongoing attack by a foreign adversary."The committee report includes a range of recommendations to ensure the government is better prepared to react to a foreign influence campaign in future elections. Legislation enacted last year requires the director of national intelligence to present regular assessments of such threats before elections, the report noted.Senators also called for the executive branch to be more forthcoming with the public, particularly if foreign influence operations -- called "active measures" by the Russians -- are underway."In the event that such a campaign is detected, the public should be informed as soon as possible, with a clear and succinct statement of the threat, even if the information is incomplete," the report said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Mike Bloomberg Is Paying ‘Influencers’ to Make Him Seem Cool Posted: 07 Feb 2020 02:00 AM PST  One day after the Iowa caucuses were effectively botched by the disastrous rollout of a new vote-counting app, billionaire Mike Bloomberg announced that he intended to capitalize on chaos from the Hawkeye State by doubling the advertising budget of his presidential campaign.But in addition to a flood of traditional advertising on television, radio, and online outlets targeting Super Tuesday voters, the campaign's advertising budget includes a strategy familiar to every other startup with a ton of cash and a questionable business model: paying influencers to make it seem cool.The Bloomberg campaign has quietly begun a campaign on Tribe, a "branded content marketplace" that connects social-media influencers with the brands that want to advertise to their followers, to pitch influencers on creating content highlighting why they love the former New York City mayor—for a price.For a fixed $150 fee, the Bloomberg campaign is pitching micro-influencers—someone who has from 1,000 to 100,000 followers, in industry parlance—to create original content "that tells us why Mike Bloomberg is the electable candidate who can rise above the fray, work across the aisle so ALL Americans feel heard & respected.""Are you sick of the chaos & infighting overshadowing the issues that matter most to us? Please express your thoughts verbally or for still image posts please overlay text about why you support Mike," the campaign copy tells would-be Bloomberg stans under the heading "Content We'd Love From You," asking influencers to "Show+Tell why Mike is the candidate who can change our country for the better, state why YOU think he's a great candidate."Tribe, which works with nearly 70,000 aspiring influencers, offers brands—and, in this case, presidential campaigns—the ability to solicit custom-made content from aspiring influencers, who create custom social within the brand's parameters for submission. If the brand accepts the content, the influencer is paid in exchange for the ability of the brand to license the content and place it on their own social channels—or, if the campaign prefers, the influencers post the sponcon to their own feeds, targeting followers that the brand might not otherwise reach.The campaign post, reviewed by The Daily Beast, encourages submissions to be well lit, mention why the influencer thinks "we need a change in Government," and for the creator to "be honest, passionate and be yourself!"Influencers are asked not to use profanity, nudity, or "overtly negative content," as well as be U.S. residents to participate."Mike Bloomberg is a middle class kid who worked his way through college," the posting states under an "About Us" section, describing Bloomberg as "a self-made businessman, proven supporter of progressive values & can get things done." The post also highlights his work on gun violence, creating a clean-energy economy, and "flipping 21 of 24 down-ballot House races he supported in 2018."The Bloomberg campaign declined to comment on the Tribe post, and an email to Tribe about whether it had worked with other political campaigns was not immediately returned.The Bloomberg content campaign appears geared toward collecting content that can later be shared by the campaign, essentially creating a stock-image library of well-crafted, "organic"-seeming still images and videos custom-made for the campaign. The relatively low $150 cost per post also makes the investment comparatively cheap—some influencers can command fees in the five or even six figures for a brand campaign, and that's not even including celebrity accounts, who can earn enough money per post to make even billionaire Bloomberg blush.The approach is novel. No other high-polling candidates reached by The Daily Beast said that their campaigns have ever paid influencers to create content for the campaign, or for influencers to post such content on their own channels in exchange for money.But the notion that one of the richest people on the planet is paying micro-influencers in exchange for authentic-seeming endorsements from Instagrammers risks giving off what might be described as a Monty Burns-entering-a-film-festival vibe.Bloomberg's posting also sidesteps some of the more un-millennial aspects of his three-term mayoralty, from his years-long endorsement of the New York Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" policy that disproportionately targeted black and Latino men to his unsuccessful war on large soft drinks.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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| New coronavirus infected 40 staff in single Wuhan hospital: study Posted: 07 Feb 2020 10:30 AM PST  Forty health care workers were infected with the novel coronavirus by patients at a single Wuhan hospital in January, a new study has found, underscoring the risks to those at the frontlines of the growing epidemic. One patient who was admitted to the surgical department was presumed to have infected 10 health care workers, according to the paper that was authored by doctors at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Friday. The study comes just hours after a Chinese doctor who was punished for raising the alarm about the coronavirus died from the pathogen -- sparking an outpouring of grief and anger over a worsening crisis that has now killed more than 630 people.
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| Warren apologizes to 6 women of color who left Nevada office Posted: 06 Feb 2020 05:56 PM PST  Elizabeth Warren is apologizing to six women of color who left her presidential campaign office in Nevada before the state's caucuses because they felt marginalized and because their concerns weren't addressed by supervisors. Politico reported that six women have left Warren's campaign office since November. Nevada holds its Democratic caucuses on Feb. 22.
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| The next Tiananmen Square? Chinese citizens are demanding increased free speech after the death of a coronavirus whistleblower doctor. China is censoring their calls. Posted: 07 Feb 2020 10:43 AM PST  Viral hashtags — "The Wuhan government owes Li Wenliang an apology," "I want freedom of speech," and "We want freedom of speech" – were seen by millions before being censored.
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| Officials: TSA agent tricked a traveler into twice showing him her breasts Posted: 07 Feb 2020 06:57 AM PST  A federal Transportation Security Administration agent tricked a traveler into twice showing him her breasts as she went through security at one of the world's busiest airports, California's attorney said.
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| Creepy Pete Posted: 07 Feb 2020 05:15 PM PST  It has to be said: There is something plain amazing about Pete Buttigieg's run for the presidency. His last election was for mayor of a very small city. No offense to South Bend, Ind., but being the nation's 308th largest city is not something to brag about. Until the Iowa caucus Buttigieg never won the support of more than 9,000 people in an election. Pete Buttigieg did this by outlasting, out-fundraising, and out-debating former governors and a California senator, and lapping billionaire entrepreneurs. He beat a national front-runner and essentially tied the runner-up to the 2016 Democratic nomination. From unknown to serious contender for the presidency in less than a year: This is real Mr. Smith stuff, a tribute to the everyman nature of democracy.To repeat myself, this is amazing, amazing stuff.But also, it's really creepy.Right?A few nights ago, the Iowa meltdown was just starting to dawn on us. Officially the Iowa Democrats were telling us that they had verified precisely zero percent of the votes.And while we pondered that fact, this man, "Mayor Pete" emerged on cable news to dispel the utter confusion and uncertainty and declare himself the victor, based on his own tabulation. Think about that for a minute.This is a man from nowhere who seems to have spent a great deal of time in the last few years managing his own Wikipedia page. His popularity is widely attributed to the work of a single media genius, Lis Smith. And as he was declaring himself the winner, a flurry of reports were being filed that there were some questionable financial connections between the developer of the Iowa vote-counting app and the Pete Buttigieg campaign.Doesn't that fact pattern make your skin crawl? Just a little? But it wasn't just that a man no one had heard of a few months ago was now a self-authenticating leader of the Democratic field. It was the way he became that leader. "Tonight, an improbable hope became an undeniable reality," he said, introducing himself.What could he mean by that? In fact, with zero tabulated results, the improbable hope was quite deniable. Now with 100 percent of results in, it looks like Bernie Sanders won the most votes, but somehow Pete Buttigieg obtained more delegates owing to the Iowa Caucus terms of service -- which seems to run hundreds of pages long in describing how tiebreaks and rounding works, and happens to have worked almost entirely in Pete Buttigieg's flavor.The stagecraft was weird. If the demographic polling we've all read is correct, then the line of seven or eight African-American supporters behind him during his Iowa victory speech represents, by my math, 180 percent of his African-American support nationwide. In fact, those in that line seemed to constitute most of the African Americans in the room, which made you wonder how it was they were placed so directly in the sight lines of the television cameras. I bet that was a very delicate mission for the person tasked with it.The surreal and eerie quality of the speech was enhanced by the fact that he declared himself the winner in prose that was so fundamentally empty. "We had the belief that in the face of exhaustion and cynicism and division, in spite of every trampled norm and every poisonous tweak," he said, "that a rising majority of Americans was hungry for action and ready for new answers."What action? What answers? What is this? The whole timbre and cadence of his speech seemed to be modeled after the rhetoric of Barack Obama. But it lacked all the reassuring notes of specificity that seemed to prove Obama was an actual human being, inhabiting a corporeal body in the same space-time continuum that I inhabit.Buttigieg's speech, on the other hand, resembled a kind of mad-lib speech in which none of the blanks had been filled. Obama was promising not just "action" but to turn back the rising sea levels. How did Pete Buttigieg manage to beat Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and a dozen other people with more charm (such as Andrew Yang) with this utter pablum?I'm not saying for sure that Pete Buttigieg is a robot or a phenomenon of massive psychotic projection. I can't prove that. All I can say is that when he came out on stage in Iowa, I felt like we were undergoing a coup.Bernie Bros have started calling him "Mayor Cheat" -- which is funny. But I now think of him as "Creepy Pete." No one can explain to me with any narrative satisfaction how he ended up on television in the position he is in. But here he is, bidding to be our leader. It's amazing. It's incredible. So incredible that I just want to check with all my readers and all their friends: Why are we crediting this as our reality?
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| Pro-Trump US preacher dropped by tour venues after outcry over homophobic comments Posted: 06 Feb 2020 03:12 PM PST  US evangelical preacher Franklin Graham, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, has been dropped by every venue booked for his planned UK tour.The seven venues cancelled following public outcry about Mr Graham's views on Islam and homosexuality.
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| Did Russian-Made Missiles Strike an Israeli Stealth F-35 in 2017? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 12:54 PM PST  Probably not. Here's what we know.
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| Mike Bloomberg called trans women a 'man wearing a dress' and implied equality 'makes no sense' to Midwesterners Posted: 07 Feb 2020 03:50 PM PST  'Give them the job of going to the Midwest and picking a town and selling to that town the concept that some man wearing a dress," Bloomberg said.
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| China virus toll hits 717 as cruise ship faces two-week quarantine Posted: 07 Feb 2020 03:32 PM PST  The death toll from China's coronavirus outbreak rose to 717 on Saturday as the country seethes over an epidemic that claimed the life of a popular doctor and created global panic. The toll has now surpassed the number of people who died in mainland China and Hong Kong during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, after another 81 people succumbed to the illness in central Hubei province. More than 34,000 people have been infected in China by the new strain, which is believed to have emerged in a market that sold exotic animals in Hubei's capital, Wuhan, late last year.
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| It's 65 degrees in Antarctica today Posted: 07 Feb 2020 10:23 AM PST  You'd need more layers in Texas today than you would in Antarctica.On Friday, scientists saw a likely record-breaking 65 degrees Fahrenheit on Antarctica's northernmost tip. The measurement taken at Esperanza Base along Antarctica's Trinity Peninsula beats out a previous record of 63.5 degrees taken in 2015, and comes just days after the end of the warmest January in the world's recorded history, The Washington Post reports.The Argentinian base announced Antarctica's T-shirt weather on Friday, but the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization said it would have to confirm the reading before declaring a record. The wave of warm area seems to be tied to a "foehn," or a rush of air that comes down from a slope or mountain and compresses air to warm it, the WMO's climate extremes expert told The Associated Press.The Antarctic Peninsula has been recorded as one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth, according to the WMO. A huge majority — around 87 percent — of the peninsula's glaciers have continually retreated over the past 50 years, an obvious sign of ongoing global warming. And with no definitive action being taken toward curbing human-caused climate change, glaciologist Eric Steig told the Post we can expect to see these records broken again soon.More stories from theweek.com Elizabeth Warren's last chance American democracy is dying Furious Democrats call for Tom Perez's resignation after Iowa fiasco
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| Drug lord Escobar's hit man dies of cancer in Colombia Posted: 06 Feb 2020 11:37 AM PST  Pablo Escobar's most notorious hit man, known by the nickname "Popeye," died on Thursday at 57 after a life of crime he celebrated on YouTube, Colombia's prison authorities said.
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| Trump’s Press Secretary Whines About Media Lunch Leaks—in New Leaked Email Posted: 06 Feb 2020 07:53 AM PST  The Trump White House is apparently still reeling because the president didn't get anything to eat at the soup-and-sole lunch he hosted for television personalities before Tuesday's State of the Union address."[T]he president of the United States welcomed you to the White House and spent almost two hours answering so many questions that he didn't eat his own lunch," White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham complained about President Donald Trump's personal sacrifice in a confidential email to the attendees—an email that was shared with The Daily Beast on Thursday morning. "He graciously gave you a couple of items on the record and then spoke frankly, honestly, and most importantly in good faith that it was off the record."Grisham, who doesn't follow the practice of delivering White House press briefings, thus obliterating a decades-long tradition by administrations of both parties, continued: "Our only agenda was to give you an idea of what the president was going to say to the country in his third State of the Union address. It was so disappointing that not even an hour passed before we were inundated with inquiries, as someone or perhaps a few in the group chose to leak out most of what was said. What's worse, some of the details were things the president specifically asked you not to share."It seems Grisham and her boss, who banned CNN from the meal, were especially angered by The Daily Beast's report about the lunch—published hours before Trump's speech to Congress—that contained many such details, such as the president's criticisms of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his vow to block publication of former National Security Adviser John Bolton's tell-all book."To me, it is the height of hypocrisy that a press who bemoans the perceived lack of ethical behavior in this administration, so brazenly violates its own ethical standards," Grisham went on, clearly warming to her subject. "The media cries for more access but cannot adhere to a simple agreed upon standard of off-the-record, which allowed your colleagues who were not in attendance to break the news for you." Delivering a helpful lecture on journalistic ethics, Grisham added: "Call me naïve, but it is my belief that old-fashioned accountability should be applied to a press corps that has sadly failed to hold itself to its very own standards. Accountability is, after all, one of the five core principles of journalism. 'We hold the powerful accountable' is a mantra that many in the press righteously shout from every news desk in this county. I ask—who holds all of you accountable?"And so on and so forth, for several paragraphs more."In closing," Grisham wrote, "I must say that for once I wouldn't mind if this email leaked, but somehow I doubt anyone will want to admit to this complete lapse in integrity."Oh ye of little faith.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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| The US Army wants its soldiers to be able to see enemies and other deadly threats through walls Posted: 07 Feb 2020 02:50 PM PST  The Army is trying to defeat battlefield unknowns by figuring out how soldiers can see through walls, a capability straight out of science fiction.
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| Man 'filmed himself beating his girlfriend to death' and then called an Uber to take her to hospital Posted: 07 Feb 2020 07:45 AM PST  A man allegedly filmed himself beating his girlfriend then ordered an Uber to take her to hospital, where she died.According to a cell phone video obtained through police warrants, Nicholas Forman, 23, from Collegeville, Pennsylvania, could be seen beating his girlfriend Sabrina Harooni, 22, on his lawn, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
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| Russia says Israel nearly shot down passenger plane in Syria Posted: 07 Feb 2020 08:04 AM PST  Russia's Defense Ministry said Friday that Israeli air forces nearly shot down a passenger jetliner in Syria during a missile strike on the suburbs of Damascus a day earlier. The allegation comes as tensions run high in Syria, where fighting has escalated in the northern province of Idlib. Syrian government forces, backed by the Russian military, have clashed with Turkish troops that support the opposition there after failing to observe a cease-fire.
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| Dem Rep Calls on DNC Chair to Resign over Iowa Failure Posted: 07 Feb 2020 05:59 AM PST  State Democratic Party officials have expressed increasing frustration with Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez over his handling of the fallout from the Iowa Caucus, and one member of Congress has even called for Perez to resign, Politico reported on Friday."Oh yeah," Representative Marcia Fudge (D., Ohio) told Politico when asked whether Perez should go. "We're a party in chaos."Representative Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.) also expressed dissatisfaction with Perez's handling of the crisis."It's just a matter of time before he's going to go," Thompson said.Officials in the Democratic Party were angry with Perez after the DNC Chair took one day to respond publicly to the delay in caucus results. State party members thought Perez had left the Iowa party chairman, Troy Price, to absorb the blame for the delay."Loads of state party chairs are pissed that [Perez] would treat one of their peers like this," one state party official commented."It was very frustrating to not hear from the DNC for 48 hours, except for them throwing Troy under the bus," said Washington state party chair Tina Podlodowski.In an appearance on MSNBC on Thursday, Perez placed blame on the Iowa Democrats for the caucus issues."This was a major league failure, [Price] owned up to it," Perez said. "And we've been there with him ever since."While Perez has tried to distance the national party from the caucus failure, the DNC was reportedly intimately involved in developing the app that was largely responsible for the reporting delays.> New nugget: the DNC hired a cybersecurity consultant to assist in vetting developers ahead of and during the app building process. Per my sources, the DNC had a hand in every step of approving from contracts to security consultants to coding. IACaucus> > -- Maura Barrett (@MauraBarrettNBC) February 7, 2020The Iowa Democrats have yet to declare a final winner of the caucus. However, with 99 percent of the results reported as of Friday, South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg held a slim lead over Senator Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.).The latest WBZ/Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll of the New Hampshire caucus places Buttigieg one percentage point behind Sanders.
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| Latest coronavirus study implicates fecal transmission Posted: 07 Feb 2020 04:42 PM PST  Diarrhea may be a secondary path of transmission for the novel coronavirus, scientists said Friday following the publication of the latest study reporting patients with abdominal symptoms and loose stool. The primary path is believed to be virus-laden droplets from an infected person's cough, though researchers in early cases have said they focused heavily on patients with respiratory symptoms and may have overlooked those linked to the digestive tract. A total of 14 out of 138 patients (10 percent) in a Wuhan hospital who were studied in the new paper by Chinese authors in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) initially presented with diarrhea and nausea one or two days prior to development of fever and labored breathing.
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| Box Kites, Rockets, and Satellites: Our 150-Year Endeavor To Forecast the Weather Posted: 07 Feb 2020 08:28 AM PST |
| A tech side effect: Many residents of China say wearing face masks to avoid the coronavirus has made it impossible to unlock their phones with Face ID Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:18 AM PST  Some residents are venting their frustrations on social media.
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| Fox News warns Fox News about spreading pro-Trump 'disinformation' on Ukraine Posted: 07 Feb 2020 02:58 AM PST  An internal report from the Fox News research department warns that several prominent Fox News guests, aided sometimes by omissions from Sean Hannity, have spread "disinformation" about Ukraine. The briefing, written by senior political affairs specialist Bryan S. Murphy and titled "Ukraine, Disinformation, and the Trump Administration," was first disclosed in a series of tweets from former Fox News freelancer Marcus DiPaola, then obtained in full by The Daily Beast. Murphy compiles reports for the Fox News "Brain Room," a research arm of the network's news division.The report specifically points to "disinformation" on Ukraine from President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Fox News contributor and Hill columnist John Solomon, and married legal team Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing.DiGenova and Toensing are part of Trump's legal circle and also represent Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, a fact not disclosed last fall when they were "spreading disinformation" on Fox News and "parroting ... beneficial narratives while employed by Firtash," Murphy wrote. Giuliani had a "high susceptibility to disinformation" from Firtash and former Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko, he added, and Solomon, an opinion columnist typically referred to as an "investigative reporter" by Hannity, "played an indispensable role in the collection and domestic publication of elements of this disinformation campaign." Trump cites Solomon's work, now under review by The Hill, while defending himself in the Ukraine scandal.Mitch Kweit, senior vice president of the Brain Room, told The Daily Beast that "the 200 page document has thousands of data points, and the vast majority have no relation to Fox News — instead it's now being taken out of context and politicized to damage the network." Read more at The Daily Beast.More stories from theweek.com Elizabeth Warren's last chance American democracy is dying Furious Democrats call for Tom Perez's resignation after Iowa fiasco
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| Six Times the Speed of Sound: Will the Air Force Get an SR-72 Spy Plane? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 09:59 AM PST  Better than the SR-71?
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| Bloomberg campaign appears to have plagiarized parts of 8 campaign policies Posted: 06 Feb 2020 09:06 PM PST  The Intercept found that several of Michael Bloomberg's 2020 pledges matched other sources word-for-word.
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| Colorado transgender teen pleads guilty to murder in school revenge case Posted: 07 Feb 2020 03:44 PM PST  A transgender teenager accused of opening fire with a friend in a Denver-area charter school in May to exact revenge on classmates who bullied him pleaded guilty on Friday to murder and attempted murder charges, prosecutors said. Alec McKinney, 16, who has been held without bond since the May 7 rampage that left one student dead and eight others wounded, pleaded guilty to 17 criminal counts, including conspiracy and weapons charges, said Douglas County District Attorney George Brauchler. McKinney is accused along with Devon Erickson, 19, of carrying out the shooting at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
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| Former US drone operator recalls dropping a missile on Afghanistan children and says military is ‘worse than the Nazis’ Posted: 07 Feb 2020 10:18 AM PST  A former US drone operator is speaking out against the atrocities he says he was forced to inflict during his time in the armed forces and says the American military as 'worse than the Nazis'.Brandon Bryant was enlisted in the US Air Force for six years. During his time with the military, he operated Predator drones, remotely firing missiles at targets more than 7,000 miles away from the small room containing his workspace near Las Vegas, Nevada.
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| Coronavirus puts Shanghai into a coma Posted: 07 Feb 2020 07:42 AM PST  For more than a week, the rare resident of Shanghai who dared venture outside has encountered something unfamiliar: a surreal peace and quiet. The deadly coronavirus epidemic has brought much of China to a standstill, but perhaps nowhere has the change been more stark than in the country's biggest and most vibrant city. Gone are the traffic jams, crowded sidewalks and businessmen hurrying to work, replaced by eerily empty roads, shuttered bars and businesses, and only the occasional pedestrians -- always behind a protective mask.
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| Virginia lawmakers to debate assault weapon ban Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:06 PM PST  Democratic lawmakers in Virginia are set to try to advance legislation to ban assault weapons despite pushback from members of their own party. A state House committee is scheduled to take up legislation backed by Gov. Ralph Northam on Friday that would ban the sale of certain semi-automatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles. Heated debates over guns have dominated this year's legislative session, as Virginia has become ground zero in the nation's raging debate over gun control and mass shootings.
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| Coronavirus' danger is made worse by the control China has over U.S. health care Posted: 06 Feb 2020 01:34 AM PST ![Coronavirus' danger is made worse by the control China has over U.S. health care]( "Coronavirus' danger is made worse by the control China has over U.S. health care") The basic building blocks of U.S. health care are now under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.
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| Mexican president: Raffle winners will get $1M — not the presidential plane Posted: 07 Feb 2020 10:50 AM PST  Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Friday gave details about a raffle aimed at covering the cost of a luxury presidential plane he has struggled to sell, clarifying that winners will get $1 million in cash rather than the plane itself.
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| Officials warn of drug called "gray death" Posted: 06 Feb 2020 06:11 PM PST  "You don't want to touch this," police said. "If at all possible you don't even want to put it on your hands."
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| GOP Sen. Romney faces awkwardness, 'abuse' for defying Trump on impeachment Posted: 06 Feb 2020 12:03 PM PST  Mitt Romney, the only GOP senator to vote to convict in the Trump impeachment trial, is a test case for the party's willingness to tolerate dissent.
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| White House Weighs ‘Alternative Uses’ for Coal Beyond Utilities Posted: 07 Feb 2020 10:29 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is seeking alternative uses for coal as it acknowledges its use in generating electricity is declining.The Energy Department is exploring if critical minerals or rare earth elements -- used in such technology as battery storage -- can be extracted from coal, or coal ash residue, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said Friday in a speech at the think tank Atlantic Council.Battery storage can help bring more renewables online, he said. Other options include exporting it to other nations where demand remains strong and developing technologies that allow to burn more cleanly, such as carbon capture."We are going to look for new uses of coal," Brouillette told reporters after the event. "There is still a bright future for coal we just have to continue to develop it."Brouillette's remarks come as coal's decline in the U.S. accelerates in the face of cheap natural gas and will provide 13% of U.S. power in 2050, down from 24% today, as power plants close, the Energy Department said in data released last month.Brouillette said other opportunities to help the industry and the miners it employs include making newer coal plants smaller and more efficient. Brouillette said the department was making $64 million available for that effort, which the agency has billed as "coal plants of the future.""We want to see that product being used as cleanly as possible," he said.To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Natter in Washington at anatter5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth WassermanFor 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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