Trump's coronavirus response includes many things he criticized President Obama for

President Trump held a news conference on Wednesday evening where he discussed his administration's response to the ongoing coronavirus epidemic. Elements of the response outlined by Trump mirror things he specifically criticized President Barack Obama for during the ebola outbreak in 2014. Trump sent nearly 50 tweets and made multiple media appearances criticizing Obama's handling of the ebola outbreak in 2014.

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  Pence Is Handling Coronavirus. But First, CPAC

  Rolling Stone
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  Who's in charge of the White House's coronavirus response?

  CBS News

44 airlines have canceled flights beyond China amid fears coronavirus is spreading globally — here's the full list

The airline was also affected by a UAE government ban on service to Iran, forcing it to cancel flights to Tehran, the airline announced on its website. Delta Air Lines GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Delta Air Lines has suspended service on its Minneapolis-Seoul route, the airline said in a news release, as South Korea struggles to contain the virus. The route is operated daily by Delta's newest aircraft, the Airbus A350-900 XWB, with Delta having strong ties with South Korean flag carrier Korean Air and numerous routes to Seoul.

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  3 airlines are canceling flights between the US and coronavirus hotspots outside of China — here's the full list

  Business Insider
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  Delta cutting flights to South Korea; JetBlue waives U.S. change fees

  Reuters

Mexico president ties shootout dead to drug consumption

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador suggested Wednesday without offering evidence that most of those who die in Mexico's cartel- and gang-fueled firefights are high on drugs or intoxicated, prompting criticism and questions about whether the claim was accurate. Speaking to journalists in his morning news conference, López Obrador said rising drug consumption rates must be reversed if the country is to guarantee peace and security after years of rising, record-setting homicide statistics. “Just so you have the number, 60% of those who lose their life each day, 60% of those killed in clashes, it is shown that they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but primarily drugs,” the president continued.

Missing Mennonite woman, 27, found dead 250 miles from home

The body of a Mennonite woman who disappeared from her New Mexico home at the end of January was found last week in Arizona, more than 250 miles away, and authorities said Tuesday they believe she was kidnapped and murdered. Sasha Marie Krause, 27, was last seen leaving her Crouch Mesa home at 8 p.m. on Jan. 18, according to the San Juan County Sheriff's Office in New Mexico. Deputies responded to Lamp & Light Publishers, a Mennonite bookstore across the street from Farmington Mennonite Church, at 3 a.m. on Jan. 19, at which point Krause was reported missing.

Tucker Carlson Turns to AOC Creepshot Guy for Coronavirus Expertise

Amid growing fears of a coronavirus outbreak and U.S. financial markets hitting a record drop on Thursday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson turned to a conservative columnist best known for taking creepy photos of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) as his expert on the crisis on Thursday night. It should perhaps come as no surprise that Carlson's guest, Washington Examiner columnist Eddie Scarry, used his primetime cable news appearance to talk about the “Commie cough” and to claim that Chinese people eating skunks are responsible for the rise of the virus. In kicking off his Fox News program, Carlson argued that it is liberals' “attitude” towards diversity that has “left us vulnerable to the coronavirus” before welcoming on Scarry to enlighten viewers on the health crisis horrors caused by political correctness.

Iran’s Incompetent Response to Coronavirus Threatens the Middle East and the World

The Iranian government has covered up an outbreak of coronavirus that now threatens the Middle East and has led to border closures and hospitalizations in five countries. Over the weekend of February 21, president Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian officials downplayed the growing crises as Iran's death toll from the virus climbed. The coronavirus has likely traveled from China to Iran's city of Qom along the same route that pilgrims and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps uses to travel, illustrating the regime's disregard for its own citizens and neighbors.

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  WHO Official: World Not Neady for Massive Outbreak

  Meredith Videos
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  Coronavirus: Iran's vice-president diagnosed with disease as outbreak spreads

  The Independent

Nigeria's Islamists targeting Christians to provoke religious war, says minister

Islamist militant groups in Nigeria have begun targeting Christians in an attempt to provoke a religious war, the information minister said on Thursday. Islamist insurgents in Nigeria have killed around 35,000 people and displaced at least two million in the past decade, driven first by Boko Haram and more recently by its offshoot, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Information Minister Lai Mohammed said jihadist groups in the northeast of the country have now adopted a "deliberate policy of attacking Christians."

Kenya bans controversial donkey slaughter trade

Kenya has decided to ban the slaughter of donkeys for use in Chinese medicine, a practice condemned by animal rights activists as cruel, unnecessary and devastating to donkey populations in Africa, a minister said on Thursday. Agriculture Minister Peter Munya told AFP that the ban, imposed earlier this week, came after "people petitioned my office to ban the slaughtering of donkeys because theft of donkeys to sell had increased". A ministry statement said rampant theft of donkeys was hitting farmers who use them to transport agricultural produce and water, and causing "massive unemployment".

Limbaugh and Trump fuel coronavirus conspiracy theories

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who told his listeners that alarmism about the coronavirus was a plot to bring down President Trump, has attacked the CDC official who warned Americans that the virus will inevitably spread in the U.S. “Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control — which today warned it could be bad, it might be bad, don't go to school and don't go to work, stay at home and teleconference — is the sister of the former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein,” Limbaugh said on Tuesday's program. Rosenstein, who resigned from the Justice Department last May, oversaw the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller that President Trump sought to stop.

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  Rush Limbaugh is fueling a coronavirus conspiracy theory about Rod Rosenstein's sister

  The Week
• Trump backers see a coronavirus conspiracy

  Politico

The US Navy orders ships in the Pacific to stay at sea at least 14 days between port calls over coronavirus concerns

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Erick A. Parsons The US Navy has given ships operating in the Pacific new port-call guidance amid concerns over the coronavirus, US Pacific Fleet told Insider on Thursday. Ships have been instructed to remain at sea for at least 14 days, the maximum incubation period for the novel coronavirus, between port calls and monitor their sailors. A US Navy spokesperson told CNN's Ryan Browne, who first reported the news on Twitter, that "there are no indications that any US Navy personnel have contracted" the coronavirus.

Right-wing extremists killed 330 in the US in last decade, figures show

A new report shows that right-wing extremists were responsible for 330 murders in the United States in the past decade, or 76 percent of all domestic extremist-related murders in that time. The annual Murder and Extremism report published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) shows that out of the 42 extremist-related murders in the US in 2019, 38 were committed by individuals subscribing to various far-right ideologies, including white supremacy. The deadliest, by far, was the August white supremacist shooting spree at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, which left 22 people dead and at least 24 more wounded.

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  Report: U.S. Right-Wing Extremists Killed 330 People In Last Decade

  HuffPost
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  Report: Domestic extremists killed at least 42 in 2019

  Associated Press

Man gets life for kidnapping stepdaughter, holding her captive for 19 years

An Oklahoma man convicted of kidnapping his stepdaughter as a child and holding her in captivity for nearly 20 years has been sentenced to life in prison, prosecutors said Tuesday. A federal jury found Henri Michelle Piette guilty in June of kidnapping and traveling with intent to engage in a sexual act with a juvenile following a seven-day trial that detailed the horrific conditions Rosalynn McGinnis endured. Piette repeatedly raped and abused her and fathered her nine children during the nearly two-decade ordeal, which began when Piette kidnapped her in 1997, when she was 12 years old.

Betsy DeVos orders probe after USA TODAY finds college evidently without faculty, students

The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation after a USA TODAY report showed an accredited college apparently had no faculty or students. The college investigated by USA TODAY, Reagan National University, was approved by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges & Schools. It has a history of approving several for-profit universities that suddenly closed, such as ITT Tech and Corinthian Colleges in the mid-2010s.

‘The View’ Warns Warren About Going After Bloomberg: ‘Be Very Careful’

The View's Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar appeared to rally to Michael Bloomberg's defense on Wednesday, telling his rival Democratic candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren to be “very careful” when attacking the ex-mayor because he could easily use the “Pocahontas thing” against her. Discussing Tuesday night's chaotic Democratic primary debate, in which Warren confronted the former mayor on his company's treatment of women and comments he allegedly made to a pregnant female employee, Goldberg seemed to side with Bloomberg's longtime partner Diana Taylor saying people need to “get over it” as it was just part of “bro culture” and happened a long time ago. “What are people expecting to happen?” Goldberg asked before referencing Bloomberg's release of three ex-employees from non-disclosure agreements.

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  Frontrunner Bernie Sanders takes brunt of attacks during Democratic debate ahead of South Carolina primary

  USA TODAY
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  Bloomberg was skewered by Warren at last night's debate — whether he hired audience members to cheer for him or not

  The Independent

At least 7 Iranian government officials have coronavirus

Masoumeh Ebtekar, Iran's vice president for women and family affairs, is the latest Iranian government official to contract the COVID-19 coronavirus. Ebtekar is the highest-ranking woman in Iran's government, and is now quarantined at home, her deputy announced on Thursday. The other infected officials are Iraj Harirchim, deputy health minister; Mojtaba Zolnour, a Parliament member from Qom and head of Parliament's national security and foreign policy committee; Mahmoud Sadeghi, a member of Parliament from Tehran; Morteza Rahmanzadeh, the mayor of a Tehran district; Dr. Mohamad Reza Ghadir, head of coronavirus management in Qom; and Hadi Khosroshahi, a major cleric and former ambassador to the Vatican.

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  ‘There is nothing to worry about’: Opaque regime in Iran insists coronavirus under control as vice-president latest high-profile patient

  The Independent
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  One of Iran's vice presidents has been infected with coronavirus

  Business Insider

Coronavirus spreads in three continents; $5 trillion wiped off markets

GENEVA/BEIJING (Reuters) - Countries on three continents reported their first cases of the coronavirus on Friday as the world prepared for a pandemic and investors dumped equities in expectation of a global recession. Coronavirus panic sent world share markets crashing again, compounding their worst week since the 2008 global financial crisis and bringing the wipeout to $5 trillion. Hopes that the epidemic that started in China late last year would be over in months, and that economic activity would quickly return to normal, have been shattered as the number of international cases have spiraled.

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  Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Traders Betting on Drop in US Gasoline Demand as Virus Spreads

  FX Empire
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  Dow suffers record decline in points as Wall Street leads global stocks lower

  Reuters

Biden says he's not worried about Trump refusing to leave if defeated in November

Joe Biden says he isn't worried about the prospect of President Trump refusing to leave his post if he's defeated in November.

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  Obama demands South Carolina networks pull anti-Biden ad 'clearly intended to mislead'

  The Week
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  Who is a South Carolina Democrat? The answer is the key to this year's Democratic primary

  USA TODAY

Critic Says Trump Is 'Ignorant' and 'Incoherent' On Coronavirus. Others Call It 'Trump' Virus.

Yesterday evening President Donald Trump addressed the public from the White House to explain what actions the government was taking in response to the coronavirus and offer assurances. “I have just received another briefing from a great group of talented people on the virus that is going around to various parts of the world,” Trump said, before a defense of his administration's timetable of actions including restricting flights from infected areas. The President said most of the Americans currently infected with coronavirus were improving, and that they were being well taken care of.

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  Pres. Trump names VP Pence to lead US response to COVID-19 coronavirus threat

  WTVD – Raleigh/Durham
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  President Trump's Press Conference About Coronavirus in U.S. — Watch

  TVLine.com

What a coronavirus quarantine was like for a mother and her 5-year-old twins in Taiwan

KeyKey Hung The novel coronavirus has spread to at least 48 countries and has infected more than 81,000 people. To protect from spreading further, Taiwan is requiring travelers arriving from areas outside of China, Hong Kong, and Macau to undergo a 14-day quarantine at home. KeyKey Hung, a mother of 5-year-old twins, recently completed a two-week quarantine in Taiwan after traveling there from her home in Hong Kong.

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  Coronavirus: TV doctor slams Tenerife hotel quarantine measures as hundreds of Brits remain stuck

  Yahoo News UK
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  Cigarettes, a few jokes on offer at Italy's quarantine checkpoints

  AFP

The Sinister Sanders Child-Care Plan

Bernie Sanders announced a “universal child care” proposal at the end of his wide-ranging 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper. The plan would guarantee “every child in America free full-day, full-week, high-quality child care from infancy through age three,” and the campaign estimates that it would cost taxpayers 1.5 trillion dollars over ten years. After failing to explain how he would pay for his expansive agenda — “I can't rattle off to you every nickel and every dime,” Sanders told Anderson Cooper in a disastrous moment of candor — the Sanders campaign released a partial list of pay-fors the day after the interview, laying out the cost of the senator's major proposals alongside the tax hikes a Sanders administration would pursue to finance its domestic agenda.

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  Michelle Obama petitioned to run as vice-president to stop Bernie Sanders, report says

  The Independent
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  Winners and losers of fiery South Carolina Democratic debate

  CBS News Videos

Man who faked being gay to gain lesbian's trust is convicted of raping her

A 36-year-old Atlanta man was convicted of raping a woman he had met on a commuter train after pretending to be gay to gain her trust, prosecutors said. The man, Taurence Callagain, met the woman in 2015 at a transit station on the west side of the city, and the two eventually exchanged numbers after riding the same train, according to a statement from the Fulton County District Attorney's office. Weeks later, after the victim missed the last bus of the night, Callagain offered to drive her home, according to the DA's office.

Idaho targets transgender people, birth certificate changes

Idaho lawmakers moved forward Thursday with legislation banning transgender people from changing the sex listed on their birth certificates despite a federal court ruling declaring such a ban unconstitutional. Ohio and Tennessee are the only other states in the country where transgender people cannot change their birth certificates, according to a law firm that has challenged the practice in court. In Idaho, this is another effort by the conservative state to target the population as Republicans in the House a day earlier advanced legislation to keep transgender women from competition.

US demands China free Swedish bookseller

The United States on Thursday demanded that China immediately free Hong Kong-based bookseller Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Gui, who was known for publishing salacious titles about China's political leaders, was snatched while on a train to Beijing in February 2018 and this week sentenced on charges of illegally providing intelligence abroad. "We call on the (Chinese) government to release him immediately and unconditionally," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement that "strongly" condemned the sentence.

Bloomberg offered running mate spot to Andrew Yang, report claims

Michael Bloomberg is reportedly trying to convince entreprenuer and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang to join his campaign as his running mate. According to individuals with knowledge of the discussion, aides working with the former New York City mayor reportedly reached out to Mr Yang to discuss how the businessmen could join forces in Mr Bloomberg's quest for the Democratic nomination. The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr Yang hasn't committed to join forces.