- 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.
- 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.
- PoliticsThe Guardian
Ted Cruz tried to mock AOC's scientific knowledge – it didn't end well
If you were in search of a scientifically minded, steadying presence to guide the country through the potential fallout of the coronavirus, you could not do much worse than Vice-President Mike Pence. This being the Donald Trump administration, however, where qualifications and expertise are often seen as prohibitive factors for top jobs, that's exactly who we've been given. Cutting to the heart of the matter with her characteristic bluntness, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez this week pointed out the absurdity of placing Pence in charge of a potentially looming health crisis.
- 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.
- PoliticsNBC News
After chemical attack and kidnapping, migrant mom tries again to enter U.S.
A Guatemalan mom who says she sustained severe chemical burns and was sexually assaulted in front of her young daughter during a kidnapping in Mexico is asking the U.S. government to let her into the country while her asylum case plays out. The woman is currently under the Trump administration's remain in Mexico program, and her attorney says sending her there was an “incredibly egregious” example of the types of cases the U.S. said would be exempt from the policy. Elizabeth, who went to Juarez, Mexico, in the summer to claim asylum with her 11-year-old daughter after fleeing gender-based violence in Guatemala, said she was tortured and sexually assaulted after arriving there and held for around 18 days in July and August.
- 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.
- LifestyleArchitectural Digest
25 Glass Coffee Tables for Any and Every Living Room
Could we be any clearer? Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
- 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.
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.
- PoliticsBusiness Insider
Trump says he's ordering 'a lot of different elements of medical' to deal with coronavirus
President Donald Trump said on Friday that the US is ordering many supplies to prepare for a possible outbreak of coronavirus within the country's borders. Among those supplies, he said, are "a lot of different elements of medical." President Donald Trump is on top of handling the US's response to a potential pandemic as the deadly coronavirus sweeps the globe.
PoliticsAFPBillionaire Steyer shakes up primary with slavery reparations plan
For centuries, South Carolina's Charleston was the largest port of entry for the transatlantic slave trade. Now, a billionaire activist named Tom Steyer is shaking up the state's Democratic primary by advocating slavery reparations for African Americans. A California financier turned philanthropist and environmental campaigner, Steyer has poured tens of millions of dollars into the state ahead of Saturday's vote -- with a single-minded focus on the black voters who make up 60 percent of its Democratic electorate.
- 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.The Daily Beast
Crazy Custody Battle With Doomsday Mom’s Niece Airs Claims of Cults, Child-Stealing, and Attempted Murder
The investigation into the disappearance of doomsday mom Lori Vallow's children has exposed a bitter, mudslinging custody battle between her niece and the niece's ex-husband—with allegations of cult membership, child-stealing, and attempted murder. The fight is being waged between Melani Pawlowski and Brandon Boudreaux, an Arizona couple who were married with four children until things started to get very strange in the summer of 2019. That's when, according to Boudreaux, his wife began spending a lot of time with Vallow, her aunt, and joined what he called a doomsday cult.
- 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.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.
“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.”
