- PoliticsYahoo News
Pompeo savaged by Democrats on Capitol Hill over coronavirus, Iran
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo faced intense criticism Friday from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who questioned him on the Trump administration's response to the growing coronavirus threat, as well as the persistent threat from foes like Iran. “I don't think you're telling us the truth,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, speaking specifically of last month's killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, which the administration has struggled to justify. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., made a similar point about the administration's coronavirus response, wondering how Americans could trust a president who has a long history of saying things that are demonstrably untrue.
- PoliticsYahoo News
New Yahoo News/YouGov poll: Who is strongest against Trump? Must-win states and swing voters show Biden holds edge over Sanders
A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll suggests that Sanders could be a riskier nominee than his supporters are willing to admit. In a national trial heat with Trump, Sanders led 48 percent to 42 percent among registered voters. Yet when the playing field was narrowed to the 10 states that were closest in the 2016 presidential election and that will likely decide 2020 — Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, Maine, North Carolina and Arizona — Sanders's lead over Trump was slashed in half (48 percent to 45 percent).
WorldAFPPope Francis cancels planned retreat due to 'cold'
Pope Francis said Sunday he would not be taking part in a planned six-day spiritual retreat south of Rome after coming down with a "cold". The 83-year-old pontiff suffered two coughing spells that forced him to turn away from the crowd and cover his mouth with his fist on a windy and cloudy day on Saint Peter's Square. "Unfortunately, a cold forced me not to take part this year," he said after reciting the traditional Angelus Prayer and addressing the unfolding migrant crisis on Turkey's border with Greece.
- BusinessBusiness Insider
United just slashed its flights to Japan and other parts of Asia, showing how quickly coronavirus fears are hurting new airline and travel markets outside China
Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters United Airlines said it would significantly reduce its capacity to Japan, Singapore, and South Korea because of the novel-coronavirus outbreak. Japan has over just a few days become the latest hot spot of the virus. Officials said this week that all schools would be closed for a month in an effort to contain the outbreak.
- U.S.The Independent
Man whose son was found encased in cement sentenced to 72 years in prison
A Colorado man whose seven-year-old son was repeatedly abused before being found encased in concrete in a Denver storage unit has been sentenced to 72 years in prison for the death. Leland Pankey received the sentence on Friday, with one count of child abuse landing him 48 years in prison and 24 years for tampering with the body. The man's wife, Elisha Pankey, is awaiting sentencing in April after pleading guilty to similar charges, according to the Denver Post.
- PoliticsBloomberg
Buttigieg ‘Assessing at Every Turn’ After South Carolina Finish
Pete Buttigieg said Sunday he's assessing his candidacy “at every turn” but didn't signal he planned to drop out of the 2020 Democratic primary race. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, spoke on NBC's “Meet the Press” after a fourth-place finish in South Carolina on Saturday. Buttigieg picked up no delegates from the state after gaining 8.2% support, and did especially poorly -- 3% -- among African-American voters, a key Democratic constituency.
- ScienceNBC News
Spooky 'blood snow' invades Antarctic island
It's summer in Antarctica, which means record-high temperatures, jarring glacial melt and — in a very metal symbol of our changing climate — a bit of blood-red snow spattered across the Antarctic Peninsula. Over the past several weeks, the ice around Ukraine's Vernadsky Research Base (located on Galindez Island, off the coast of Antarctica's northernmost peninsula) has been coated in what researchers are calling "raspberry snow." A Facebook post by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine shows the scene in full detail: streaks of red and pink slashing across the edges of glaciers and puddling on the frosty plains.
- U.S.The Daily Beast
Embattled Chris Matthews Left Out of MSNBC’s S.C. Primary Coverage
A day after he was accused of sexual harassment by a journalist, MSNBC decided to keep host Chris Matthews off its airwaves during coverage of the South Carolina primary results. Matthews is normally a fixture of election night coverage, which made his absence on Saturday all the more notable. A week ago, Matthews likened Sen Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) victory in the Nevada caucuses to France falling to the Nazis in World War II. He apologized to Sanders—who is Jewish and whose family lost members in the Holocaust—but quickly shoved his foot in his mouth again.
- WorldThe National Interest
Why the Navy's New Lrasm Missile Would Be a Real Ship-Killer
On October 11, 1967, the Israeli destroyer Eilat was sunk by three P15 cruise missiles fired by two dinky sixty-one-ton patrol boats of the Egyptian Navy firing from nearly twenty miles away. The realization dawned on navies across the world that long-range “over-the-horizon” missiles had replaced the gun, torpedo and aerial bomb as the preeminent antiship weapon in naval warfare. A decade later, the U.S. Navy debuted the AGM-84 Harpoon missile, a subsonic sea-skimming weapon with a 488-pound warhead that came in variants that could fire from a ship, a submarine or an airplane.
- U.S.Yahoo News
New coronavirus cases in Northern California raise alarm
A second case of coronavirus spread by community transmission was reported in Northern California on Friday, and a student at the University of California, Davis, was being tested for infection with the virus. A 65-year-old resident of Santa Clara County, which encompasses most of Silicon Valley, was diagnosed with the virus. The patient has not traveled recently to countries experiencing outbreaks, meaning the infection was contracted locally, implying that the virus is spreading domestically.
- PoliticsReuters
Trump allies hope to ride anti-socialist rhetoric to election win
Conservative activists are enthusiastically taking up Republican President Donald Trump's re-election rallying cry that his Democratic adversaries are pursuing a radical socialist ideology that will ruin the United States. Conservative students, right-wing media personalities and pro-Trump fundraisers and fans have gathered just outside Washington this week for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that appears to have crystallized Republican messaging for the election. Its theme was "America vs. Socialism," taking aim at the candidates competing for the Democratic Party's nomination to challenge Trump in the Nov. 3 election, especially Senator Bernie Sanders, the current front-runner and a self-described democratic socialist.
WorldAFPCould Russia go to war with Turkey in Syria?
Russia has no appetite for a military confrontation with Turkey in Idlib but the Kremlin won't step back from its support for the Syrian regime's campaign to regain control of the province. The killing of 33 soldiers by fire from forces of Russia's ally the Syrian regime -- the biggest Turkish military loss on the battlefield in recent years -- raised fears of war between the two historic rivals. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin of Russia were quick to hold telephone talks and plan a summit as soon as next week in Moscow, with Russian officials striking a conciliatory tone.
- BusinessTODAY
Traveling during the coronavirus outbreak? Here’s what you need to know
Which countries have coronavirus travel warnings? The U.S. Department of State lists China at level 4 — its most severe advisory — recommending that people do not travel to the country at this time. The department encourages U.S. citizens in China to depart by commercial means or "stay home as much as possible and limit contact with others, including large gatherings.
- WorldAssociated Press
As India counts dead, brutality of Hindu-Muslim riot emerges
As the Mustafabad neighborhood of India's capital was ravaged by communal riots for three days this week, the Al-Hind Hospital turned from a community clinic into a trauma ward. Doctors like M.A. Anwar were for the first time dealing with injuries such as gunshot wounds, crushed skulls and torn genitals. I wanted to cry and scream,” he recalled.
- WorldYahoo News Video
According to the U.S. Navy, Chinese ship fired laser at American aircraft
A Chinese Navy ship fired a laser at a U.S. surveillance aircraft flying over the Philippine Sea west of Guam, the Navy said Thursday, acknowledging the incident more than a week after it happened.
- PoliticsThe Independent
Coronavirus: Mike Pence admits US could see more deaths, after Trump calls crisis a ‘hoax’
Mike Pence has admitted that the United States could see more deaths from the coronavirus. Speaking on CNN's State of the Union the vice-president, who has been put in charge of administration efforts to protect Americans from the deadly virus, acknowledged there could be more “sad news”, but insisted the risk to most people was still low. A man in his 50s who had underlying health problems succumbed to the illness in Washington state, where at least two other cases have been confirmed and 50 people in an elderly care home who are suffering from respiratory illness are being monitored.
- LifestyleArchitectural Digest
25 Glass Coffee Tables for Any and Every Living Room
Could we be any clearer? Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
- WorldThe National Interest
Could This Be the Navy's New Super Bomber? (Wait, What?)
Will China assert de facto dominion over large expanses of those waters thanks to its growing military power, and thus be positioned to dictate terms to states like Japan, Vietnam, and Australia? Or will the United States and its regional allies maintain a credible countervailing presence? In that context, the once-moribund strategic bomber—formerly seeming a vestige of the Cold War nuclear strategy—has reemerged to prominence.
U.S.USA TODAYWashington state declares emergency after first patient dies from coronavirus in US
Washington state declared a state of emergency Saturday only hours after a man in his 50s with underlying health problems was identified as the first person in the U.S. to die from the coronavirus outbreak. Washington state public health officials said two additional confirmed cases of the virus are associated with a longterm care facility in the state. Officials said 27 patients and 25 staff members at the Life Care Center of Kirkland had reported symptoms similar to the coronavirus.
- PoliticsThe Week
Trump hadn't slept for at least 'a day and a half' before his coronavirus press conference, Mick Mulvaney says
You'd think President Trump was being haunted by Freddy Krueger based on his sleep habits as described by acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Mulvaney while speaking at Friday's Conservative Political Action Conference declared that the president basically "never sleeps," having apparently barely done so before addressing the nation about the coronavirus crisis earlier this week. "He flew to India, did a day and a half of work, flew back, did not sleep on the flight home, and I know that because he's emailing and texting and taking phone calls," Mulvaney said.
- PoliticsThe Daily Beast
South Carolina Win Gives Joe Biden a $hot in the Arm
Joe Biden bet the balance of his five-decade political career on winning South Carolina — and hit the jackpot. After months of drooping poll numbers, tortured debate performances, and awkward exchanges on the stump, the state's voters came to his rescue in Saturday's Democratic primary in a big way, handing him a victory that creates some much-needed forward motion to the former frontrunner's 2020 chances — and sets up a showdown with the current frontrunner, Bernie Sanders. The former Vice President was expected to win South Carolina, but experts said he likely needed a convincing victory in the state he had staked his candidacy on following disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire.
- WorldReuters
Australia's first coronavirus death confirmed as former Diamond Cruise passenger
A former passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was quarantined off Japan for coronavirus died in a hospital in Perth early on Sunday, a health official said, becoming Australia's first death from the virus. The 78-year-old man had been in quarantine since being evacuated from the cruise ship off Yokohama, one of more than 150 Australians taken off the vessel. "Our condolences are with his family and unfortunately he's the first death we've had from coronavirus in Australia," Andrew Robertson, the chief health officer of Western Australia state, told journalists.
- U.S.NBC News
White supremacist was out of prison 86 days when stabbed man to death
A white supremacist gang member in California who had been out of prison just three months when he stabbed a 22-year-old man to death was sentenced Friday to 56 years to life. Craig Matthew Tanber stabbed Shayan Mazroei through the heart and in the shoulder following a confrontation at a bar in Laguna Niguel in September 2015. Tanber was at the bar with his girlfriend, Elizabeth Thornburg, when Thornburg "exchanged words" with Mazroei while they were standing outside, the Orange County District Attorney's Office said in a press release.
- U.S.Bloomberg
Trump Team Testing ‘Off-the-Shelf’ Drugs to Cure Coronavirus
A national lab in Tennessee recently made “an important discovery” involving existing drugs, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland. “The scientists at our Oak Ridge National Laboratory were able to look at the protein strains and determine -- perhaps, it's still early -- that we can find some off-the-shelf drugs that can help us not only cure the disease but stop the spread of the infection,” Brouillette said. Brouillette was responding to a question about what his agency is doing to help combat the virus, which has caused markets to plunge and killed nearly 3,000 people across the globe.
- WorldAssociated Press
Eight fighters with Lebanon's Hezbollah killed in Syria
The deaths marked the highest for the group in Syria in years as Hezbollah has pulled out many of its fighters from the neighboring country. Hezbollah sent thousands of its battle-hardened fighters into Syria a year after the country's conflict began in 2011, helping President Bashar Assad's forces win major battles against insurgents. But over the past two years, Hezbollah has withdrawn many of its forces, leaving only a few hundred of them in several areas around the war-torn country.
“There may be some really big pardons coming soon and this may, if you will, soften the public for what’s coming.”
“It was the latest extraordinary example of untamed executive power that suggests the President is feeling invincible now.”
“More than anything else, the pardons aim to discredit the idea of federal anti-corruption prosecution itself.”
“The fact that Blagojevich was a Democrat makes it all the better...Trump wants to convince you that everyone is dirty.”
“The pardons were entirely personal in origin, and so the granting of them was exclusively an exercise of Trump’s own power.”
