ESSEX JUNCTION, Vt. — Sen. Bernie Sanders took aim at former Vice President Joe Biden, his chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, at a rally here, as Super Tuesday results trickled in from across the country. Sanders did not utter Biden's name, but the senator predicted that he would win the nomination and defeat President Trump, because the race would become a “contrast of ideas.” Sanders continued attacking Biden, who scored numerous victories in Tuesday's contests and cemented his status as a leading contender for the Democratic nomination.
Scott Pruitt, the onetime administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was once a potent symbol of corruption within the Trump administration, as well as of its push to roll back environmental protections. With his penchant for first-class flights and other reported excesses — including, most infamously, an ill-fated search for a used mattress from the Trump International Hotel — Pruitt became an increasing problem for a White House that had promised to hold public officials accountable. Trump fired Pruitt just a day after Ingraham's second call for him to do so.
Congress agreed to put a bipartisan emergency spending package to curb the spread of COVID-19 up for a House vote Wednesday, but it may get held up by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who wants to include an amendment to the bill. Paul, a deficit hawk, wants to ensure the U.S. has some way to fund the COVID-19 package, so he's trying to sneak a foreign aid cut in there. Paul is confident he'll get a vote, but he's prepared to stick around in Washington all weekend either way.
If you have too much lawn for a standard push mower but not enough for a riding mower, consider these capable machines. From Popular Mechanics
A mother, father and grandmother in Arizona were charged with murder and child abuse after admitting that a 6-year-old who died was kept in a closet with his brother as punishment for "stealing food," police said Tuesday. Anthony Jose Archibeque-Martinez, 23, Elizabeth Archibeque-Martinez, 26, and Ann Marie Martinez, 50, are being held at the the Coconino County Jail on one count each of first-degree felony homicide and two counts each of child abuse, according to a statement from the Flagstaff Police Department. Officers responded to a call Monday about an unresponsive child at a Flagstaff home, the statement said.
NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors on Wednesday night objected to Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff's bid for release from prison, arguing that the reviled and ailing ex-financier should continue serving his 150-year sentence. Charging that the 81-year-old convict who ran one of history's biggest scams has "demonstrated a wholesale lack of understanding of the seriousness of his crimes and a lack of compassion for his victims," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York urged a judge to keep him in prison. The recommendation came in response to Madoff's legal motion in February for compassionate release based on failing health.
The number of people who have the novel coronavirus in New York state doubled to 22 on Thursday, following an increase in testing, as Tennessee became the 14th state to report a case of the fast-spreading illness.
Key point: Seoul for years has mulled a purchase of F-35Bs to complement the country's land-based F-35As. South Korea is getting an aircraft carrier. The vessel could help Seoul's navy to compete with its main rivals, the Chinese and Japanese fleets.
Moscow authorities announced a "high alert regime" and imposed extra measures on Thursday to prevent a spread of the coronavirus in the Russian capital. A document posted on the Moscow mayor's website said that Russians who return from China, South Korea, Iran, France, Germany, Italy and Spain and other states who display possible "unfavorable" signs of coronavirus should self-isolate themselves at home for 14 days. Russia has not reported any confirmed cases of people contracting coronavirus on its territory, although six people who picked up the virus elsewhere have received or are receiving treatment.
And even in the state where Warren did best, she still lost to both Biden and Sanders. The fact that it was her home state of Massachusetts added insult to injury. All told, Warren emerged from Super Tuesday — a day when 1,357 delegates were up for grabs — with a gain of just 36 delegates, for a total of around 60, compared with more than 500 for both Sanders and Biden.
While much is still unknown about the virus, a group of Australian experts have estimated that the virus may have severe consequences on global gross domestic product. New modeling from The Australian National University looks at seven scenarios of how the outbreak might affect the world's wealth, ranging from low severity to high severity. In the low-severity model — or best-case scenario of the seven — ANU researchers estimate a global GDP loss of $2.4 trillion, with an estimated death toll of 15 million.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday criticized Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) over comments the minority leader made in reference to an abortion case currently being debated by the court. “For Justice Roberts to follow the right wing's deliberate misinterpretation of what Senator Schumer said, while remaining silent when President Trump attacked Justices Sotomayor and Ginsberg last week, shows Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes,” a spokesperson for Schumer responded. Earlier Wednesday, Schumer appeared to threaten Republican justices.

Almost 300 million students worldwide faced weeks at home with Italy and India the latest to shut schools over the deadly new coronavirus, as health officials on Thursday warned many countries were not doing enough to fight the outbreak. As the number of cases rose above 97,000 worldwide with over 3,300 deaths in some 85 countries, the Paris marathon, Russia's main business forum and Italy's final match against England in the Six Nations Championship on March 14 were among the events cancelled or postponed. The outbreak's rapid spread has prompted fears of a global economic downturn and rumbled global stock markets, with major European and US exchanges sinking again Thursday.
A 10-year-old boy surrendered to police Thursday after hiding out in a shed and firing a shotgun at them. San Diego police said the unusual firefight began when the boy's parents called the police because he was having an emotional and mental episode. The San Diego Union Tribune reported gunshots kicked off a nearly two-hour standoff between the boy and San Diego police.
While all the attention of Super Tuesday focused on the presidential nomination race among the Democrats and the fight between the former vice-president Joe Biden and the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, other races and dramas across the US also played out. Here are five things you may have missed: A Bush loses in Texas Pierce Bush was aiming to advance in the Republican primary for a Texas congressional seat in Houston. But the grandson of president George HW Bush and relative of president George W Bush and ex-Florida governor Jeb Bush, lost his race – the first Bush to lose in Texas in 40 years.
Lawmakers gave their endorsement to the government during Thursday's proceedings in the capital, Abuja, to seek the funding expected from the Islamic Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the World Bank and creditors in China, Japan and Germany. The government will use the money to expand the railways, build a new hydro power dam and fund special intervention projects across the West African nation, according to a letter sent to the parliament in November. While Nigeria's outstanding loans amount to about about a quarter of its economic output, Africa's largest oil producer spends more than half of its revenue servicing debts.
It seems that there isn't a prominent progressive left in America who hasn't come out in favor of abolishing the Electoral College. The latest is Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who called for an end to our 200-plus-year-old presidential election system on Twitter earlier this month. Sanders didn't explain why he wanted to ditch the Electoral College (it was a tweet after all), but it's interesting that as a senator from a small state, he has benefited enormously from the supposedly “undemocratic” nature of the American political system.
Britain's top court on Thursday refused Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum permission to appeal a ruling allowing publication of two judgments given in a legal battle with his former wife over the wardship of their children. Mohammed has been involved in a dispute with Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, half-sister of Jordan's King Abdullah, over the welfare of their two children since last May. Andrew McFarlane, president of London's High Court Family Division, who has been overseeing the case, has issued two judgments and in January decided these should be made public.
Joe Biden's recent surge in the Democratic primary has revived his White House hopes and, with them, the Senate GOP's interest in using their power to dig into his son Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine. The desire for dirt on the Bidens was what prompted House Democrats to impeach President Donald Trump, after it was revealed he was leveraging military aid to Ukraine as part of his efforts. But as Biden seemed to fade from contention during the early voting contests, interest in Hunter Biden's time on the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma seemed to fade among Trump and Republicans too.
A Bay Area resident visited Kunming, in China's Yunnan province — about 1,000 miles southwest of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak originated — on January 25. Seeing how differently the Chinese and US governments handled the outbreak convinced him that he felt safer in China than he does on American soil. A 36-year-old US citizen from Cupertino, California, visited Kunming, China, almost 1,000 miles southwest of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak originated, on January 25.
The first coronavirus patient in New Hampshire — an employee of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center — defied instructions from public health officials to stay away from other people. In a statement, the state Department of Health and Human Services said the patient attended an invitation-only private event Friday "despite having been directed to self-isolate." The action prompted the state to issue "an official order of isolation to the first patient."
More importantly, Clarke Chitty, one suspects, has zero interest in stripping away Bloomberg's constitutional right to own a firearm, or to hire professional armed bodyguards to protect him from legitimate threats. The former mayor of New York City, on the other hand, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in efforts to pass laws and regulations that would leave Americans like Clarke Chitty defenseless. It's this kind of arrogance that brought about District of Columbia v.
The chief judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has barred Justice Department and FBI officials under review for wiretapping former Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page from appearing before the Court. In a 19-page opinion, Judge James E. Boasberg ordered that “FBI personnel under disciplinary review in relation to their work on FISA applications accordingly should not participate in drafting, verifying, reviewing, or submitting such application to the Court while the review is pending. He added that any “DOJ or FBI personnel under disciplinary or criminal review” are also prohibited from working on FISA applications.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, who will face a trial for charges of bribery later this month, has managed to get a significant lead in his third electoral showdown. It's not yet clear whether Netanyahu will be able to actually form a government. Since Netanyahu is determined to evade justice, it seems like the country is facing a constitutional crisis of a new scale.
A large asteroid will fly close to, but won't hit, Earth next month, according to NASA data. CNN reports that the asteroid, predicted to be between 1.1 and 2.5 miles wide, is scheduled to fly past Earth on April 29.
"No Democrat this cycle did more to boost his political career."
"Yes, Buttigieg will almost certainly run for president again."
"At some point, the fact that a presidential candidate is LGBT will be a footnote rather than a headline."
"Those close to Mr. Buttigieg see no obvious political next step in Indiana."
"Buttigieg could run for president 40 years from now, but likely will not have to wait that long."