Bernie Sanders, who has been mostly spared attacks by his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, paid the price of being the frontrunner Tuesday night in the debate in South Carolina, which holds its primary election on Saturday. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg kicked off the flurry of attacks by referencing a finding from U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia was seeking to aid Sanders's candidacy in the primary election. “Vladimir Putin thinks that Donald Trump should be president of the United States and that's why Russia is helping you, so you'll lose to him,” Bloomberg said.
Americans have been warned by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to begin preparing for the spread of the coronavirus. The data over the past week about the spread in other countries has raised our level of concern and expectation that we are going to have community spread here,” Dr Nancy Messonnier, the CDC head of respiratory diseases, told reporters. Public health officials confirmed on Tuesday that there are currently 57 people in the United States with the virus, with only two instances of person-to-person transference.
Billionaire Tom Steyer is facing some criticism over his spending in South Carolina, a state where his Democratic presidential campaign is making some legitimate headway. Some people have even accused him of trying to buy votes from the state's African-American voters, which Steyer and many others have adamantly denied, The New York Times reports. One thing that's been particularly scrutinized is the Steyer campaign's rental agreement with a company owned by Jennifer Clyburn Reed, the daughter of Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest-ranking African American in Congress whose endorsement is considered key in South Carolina.
GREENVILLE, S.C. – In last week's debate in Nevada, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren used her opening remarks to attack former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg over sexism accusations. She brought it up again in Tuesday's debate in Charleston. Bloomberg was asked to contend with allegations of crude remarks toward women, specifically whether he allegedly told a pregnant employee to "kill it."
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a red-flag gun bill Tuesday that will allow state district courts to order the temporary surrender of firearms, and she urged sheriffs to resign if they still refuse to enforce it. Flanked by advocates for stricter gun control and supportive law enforcement officials at a signing ceremony, Lujan Grisham said the legislation provides law enforcement authorities with an urgently needed tool to deter deadly violence by temporarily removing firearms from people who pose a threat to themselves or others. “If they really intend to do that, they should resign as a law enforcement officer and leader in that community,” she said.
Investigators are considering searching inside Yellowstone National Park for missing Idaho teen Tylee Ryan, sources close to the investigation told CBS News. Ryan, 17, and her 7-year-old brother Joshua "JJ" Vallow haven't been seen since September. According to court documents, police in Rexburg, Idaho, said phone records show Ryan visited Yellowstone with her mother, uncle and brother JJ on September 8, CBS News correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti reports.
Senator John Kennedy on Tuesday demanded answers from acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf regarding the likely extent of the domestic coronavirus outbreak, saying the American people deserve “straight answers” about the deadly virus. During a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Kennedy asked Wolf how many cases of people infected with the coronavirus the U.S. anticipates having. You're head of Homeland Security, and your job is to keep us safe.
Taiwan should continue to show goodwill to China during the outbreak of the new coronavirus and not give Beijing an excuse to attack the island as a way of relieving "internal pressure", advisers to Taiwan's China-policy making body said. Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has repeatedly lambasted Beijing over the virus, worsening already poor ties, even as President Tsai Ing-wen and other officials have offered to help China fight the outbreak. Much of the anger has been focused on China blocking Taiwan's participation at the World Health Organization, with the island accusing China of passing on wrong information to the body about the numbers of infected in Taiwan and of not allowing the island to get the most up to date details on the virus.
A volatile double star system appears to change its behavior rapidly and unpredictably like a cosmic story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The pair consists of a neutron star — an extremely dense remnant of a supernova explosion — and a smaller, sunlike star. Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation's Karl F. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers found that this binary star system switches between two alter egos every few years.
Haiti's Carnival celebration in the country's capital of Port-au-Prince was disrupted for hours on Sunday as armed and masked, plain-clothed police officers protested their pay and poor working conditions. One soldier was killed in the clash and several police officers were injured. The deadly protest brought an end to Carnival, the biggest celebration in Haiti.
An easy upgrade for your kitchen sink Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) got some blowback Monday for comments he made on Sunday's 60 Minutes in favor of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro's literacy program. It's not clear many people outside of Florida or under age 70 have strong feelings about Castro anymore — he died in 2016, after all, and Cuba is now mostly known as a hot vacation spot. Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton clearly did not pay attention to that last part of the interview when he jumped in to slam Sanders for "revealing the extent of his extremism" by suggesting "Castro's communist Cuba is not all bad." So Twitter reminded him.

A federal health official warned Tuesday that the deadly coronavirus could cause "severe" disruptions in the USA as global experts struggled to fend off the outbreak and avoid a pandemic. "Disruption to everyday life may be severe," Nancy Messonnier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned at a news conference Tuesday. Messonnier said the coronavirus has caused sickness and death and sustained person-to-person transmission.
An Italian man suffering from frostbite and four other tourists were rescued in the Alaska wilderness after visiting an abandoned bus that has become a lure for adventurers since it was featured in the “Into the Wild” book and movie. Alaska State Troopers say the five Italians were rescued Saturday from a camp they set up after visiting the dilapidated bus on the Stampede Trail near the interior town of Healy.
Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has been accused of plagiarising Barack Obama in several campaign speeches. In a compilation video featuring side-by-side comparisons of the two men's speeches, Mr Buttigieg is shown using almost the exact same words as Mr Obama on multiple occasions. The embarrassing video comes as Mr Buttigieg faces mockery for a tweet in which he seemed to borrow from one of the speeches in question.
A Kansas man who spent over two decades in prison for a double murder he didn't commit will be awarded $1.5 million for his wrongful conviction, according to the Kansas State Attorney General's office. Lamonte McIntyre was convicted and sentenced to two terms of life in prison for the murders of Donald Ewing and Doniel Quinn back in 1994. According to the Associated Press, documents made public during the 8-year fight to free McIntyre allege that the prosecutor in the case intimidated witnesses who told her that McIntyre did not look like the shooter after they saw him in person.
A Moscow court has ruled that a former U.S. marine accused of drunkenly assaulting Russian police officers six months ago last summer must remain in custody. Trevor Reed, 28, from Texas, was arrested in Moscow in August. But his case, which could be another irritant in strained U.S.-Russian ties, was not made public until reports late on Tuesday by the New York Times and the TASS news agency.
Video shows Iran's deputy health minister suffering symptoms of the coronavirus at a press conference before being diagnosed.
Air New Zealand Stephen Brashear/Getty Air New Zealand is canceling flights between its base in Auckland and Seoul, South Korea from March 8 to June 30 as coronavirus spreads in the Asian country, the airline announced. The route is the Kiwi flag carrier's sole route between New Zealand and South Korea, with Korean Air left as the only operator on the route during Air New Zealand's suspension. Air Seoul KIM HONG-JI/Reuters Air Seoul is cutting flights to seven destinations outside of China, the airline announced, with cancellations to Guam, Da Nang, Vietnam, Hanoi, Vietnam, Nha Trang, Vietnam, Boracay, Philippines, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, and Siem Reap, Cambodia The Korean budget airline wa...

Hong Kong's government said Wednesday it will give a HK$10,000 ($1,280) handout to every permanent resident in a bid to jump-start an economy in recession after months of protests and hit further by the coronavirus outbreak. Financial Secretary Paul Chan unveiled the cash gift in the annual budget, committing a colossal HK$120 billion to help alleviate the worst economic downturn the international financial hub has faced in a decade. Hong Kong boasts significant fiscal reserves of more than HK$1 trillion built up over the boom years, a stockpile that the government is now tapping into.
WASHINGTON — The forewoman on the jury that convicted Roger Stone said she did not lie in a jury questionnaire in which she was asked whether she had posted publicly about the longtime ally of President Donald Trump. The issue is at the heart of a bid for a new trial by Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress and obstructing its investigation on Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential race. The 67-year-old GOP operative was sentenced last week to three years and four months in prison, but U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has allowed Stone to not begin serving his sentence while the motion for a new trial is unresolved.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans to prepare for a coronavirus outbreak at home that could lead to significant disruptions of daily life, though the warnings were downplayed by the White House. Congress was told that there's shortage of masks needed for health workers if one occurs. New cases were reported in Europe, prompting worries of a widening outbreak there.
A Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy after spending eight years on death row in Pakistan, and who faced death threats from Islamic extremists, said she is going to request asylum in France. Asia Bibi will receive her diploma Tuesday as a Citizen of Honor of the city of Paris, a title she was awarded in 2015. She will meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, officials said.
According to the official Fars News Agency, just 42 percent of Iranians voted in the country's latest parliamentary elections, which took place on Friday. That's the lowest percentage ever recorded in the 41-year history of the Islamic Republic. By way of comparison: The turnout for Iran's last parliamentary elections, in 2016, was approximately 60 percent.
Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is being criticised for telling bankers he would have defended them as president in a leaked audio from a private Goldman Sachs event in 2016. But, he added, “you know how well that's gonna go down in this country”. Mr Bloomberg then defended the banks more seriously: “Somebody's gotta stand up and do what we need.

“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.”