| Buttigieg: I won't 'take lectures on family values' from Rush Limbaugh Posted: 16 Feb 2020 07:59 AM PST  Pete Buttigieg had a simple response on Sunday when asked about talk show host Rush Limbaugh's questioning whether Americans are ready to back a gay candidate for president.
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| Gunmen kill 24 in attack on Burkina Faso church Posted: 17 Feb 2020 06:08 AM PST  Gunmen killed twenty-four people, including a pastor, in an attack on a church during Sunday mass in northwestern Burkina Faso, four security sources told Reuters on Monday. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack, which comes as jihadist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State seek to gain control over once peaceful rural Burkina Faso, fuelling ethnic and religious conflict. The violence threatens to upend traditionally peaceful relations between Burkina Faso's majority Muslim community and its Christians, who represent up to a quarter of the population.
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| 'Red flag' gun-control proposal is a recipe for decreased safety and less freedom Posted: 16 Feb 2020 02:00 AM PST  Even the American Civil Liberties Union says legislation like this is an affront to individual rights and due process.
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| The global spread of the new coronavirus: Where is it? Posted: 17 Feb 2020 04:39 PM PST  The new coronavirus that emerged in central China at the end of last year has now killed nearly 1,800 people and spread around the world.
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| Chinese President Xi knew severity of coronavirus weeks before going public; 40 Americans on cruise ship infected Posted: 16 Feb 2020 05:36 PM PST  President Xi Jinping published a timeline of his actions as the Communist Party worked to tamp down criticism of government handling of the crisis.
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| Seattle-area teachers reported fired for being gay; Catholic school says they resigned Posted: 16 Feb 2020 11:45 AM PST  A County Council member claims the two teachers were forced out of their positions at Kennedy Catholic High School "solely because they are gay."
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| Biden says he'd 'disown' anyone who made online attacks like Bernie Sanders' supporters Posted: 15 Feb 2020 07:53 PM PST  Biden said Sanders must "find out who the hell they are, if any of them work for [him]," and fire them if need be.
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| A return to Auschwitz, 75 years after liberation Posted: 15 Feb 2020 07:47 PM PST  Approximately 200 survivors of genocide – many of whom were children when they were freed from the Nazis' extermination camp in the final days of World War II – revisit the site where family members were killed, with simple goals: to remember, and pass on their stories
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| Killing of 7-year-old girl stokes anger in Mexico Posted: 17 Feb 2020 10:00 AM PST  The killing of a 7-year-old girl on the southern outskirts of Mexico City has stoked rising anger over brutal slayings of women, including one found stabbed to death and skinned earlier this month. The killings have proved a politically difficult issue for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who said protests over the killings were an attempt to distract attention from his social programs.
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| Trump attends wedding of White House aides Posted: 17 Feb 2020 04:02 AM PST  President Trump went from the Daytona 500 on Sunday to attending the wedding of two top members of his administration, senior adviser Stephen Miller and Katie Waldman, press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence.
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| Push for universal basic income will outlive Andrew Yang's 2020 presidential campaign Posted: 17 Feb 2020 02:00 AM PST  A congressional 'cash squad' and other advocates are working on policies to put more money into the hands of people struggling to make ends meet.
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| 'Historic, unprecedented' flooding swamps southern USA; Mississippi and Tennessee hardest hit Posted: 17 Feb 2020 01:26 PM PST  Weeks of heavy rain have inundated a large portion of the southern USA, bringing near-record flooding to Mississippi and Tennessee
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| Coronavirus updates: Americans quarantined on cruise ship return to U.S Posted: 17 Feb 2020 04:31 PM PST  As U.S. evacuated its nationals from the quarantined cruise ship in Japan Sunday, the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak continued to rise.
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| Pakistan to consider importing insecticides from India to fight locusts Posted: 17 Feb 2020 04:57 AM PST  Pakistan is likely to import insecticides from arch-rival India to brace itself for any locust attacks this summer, bypassing a ban on trade between the neighbouring nations. A copy of Cabinet agenda for a Tuesday meeting seen by Reuters has the import option on it. Pakistan severed all diplomatic and trade ties with New Delhi in August after India revoked the special status of Kashmir, a disputed territory between the two rivals, who have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region.
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| Ocasio-Cortez faces 13 challengers – but can anyone unseat her? Posted: 17 Feb 2020 01:00 AM PST  Eight Republicans and five Democrats are vying to take on AOC – but many voters in the district are voicing support for the congresswomanDemocratic leftist superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has risen to national – and even global – fame from an unlikely position as a young first-time congresswoman from New York.But now she faces 13 different challengers, including from within her own party as well as Republicans, as she prepares for her first congressional re-election campaign. News of the multiple bids to unseat AOC, however, came as a surprise to many voters on the streets of her district in the Bronx last week.Some voters still had not heard of the progressive superstar. Others said they would weigh the merits of her rivals as the contests heat up over the summer. But most voiced support, arguing that almost two years since Ocasio-Cortez threw a grenade at the Democratic establishment by ousting incumbent Joe Crowley, her progressive agenda – touting universal healthcare and a Green New Deal – was only now taking hold in the nation's political capital."Give her a chance! We knew who she was when we sent her, that she'd make a noise, and making a noise was why we sent her," said local businessman Abdul Abbas."She's done good things for the Bronx," concurred Carol Heraldo. "I like how she presents herself as woman, that she's firm, that she took what she believed and made it real. We don't see a lot of young people accomplish a lot because they're afraid – and she's not afraid."> We knew who she was when we sent her, that she'd make a noise, and making a noise was why we sent her> > Abdul AbbasThat's not how all see it. The first-term congresswoman is facing eight Republican and five Democratic candidates aiming to unseat her. Some appear symbolic, with little fundraising potential or appetite for collecting the necessary 4,000 signatures to get on the ballot.At her first campaign rally on Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez said she hoped to multiply turnout by four, reaching 60,000 votes in the primary election. She declined to be drawn on the challengers that have lined up to contest her seat."I think everyone has a right [to run]. I of course won my seat with a primary," she told the New York Post. "I would never begrudge anyone trying to run in a primary."Ocasio-Cortez's Republican challengers certainly seem to have their work cut out for them. In 2018 she steamedrolled the Republican candidate by a margin of 78%.With about $3.4m in her campaigns re-election coffers in a solidly Democratic district, Ocasio-Cortez's Republican challengers probably plan on merely damaging her or securing a bigger national media profile by taking on such a famed opponent.John Cummings, a former police officer, raised $425,000 in 10 weeks after announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination on Fox & Friends. Jamaican immigrant Scherie Murray gave her first interview to Fox News's Sean Hannity and raised a similar amount.But having led a campaign to prevent Amazon from establishing a headquarters in neighboring Long Island City, and established herself as a leading member of "the Squad", the self-described group of progressive congresswomen that includes Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ocasio-Cortez is a political target.In a district that hasn't voted Republican in half a century, the Republican candidates are tackling a candidate who has become a lightning rod for rightwing anger nationally."Anything that indicates AOC is vulnerable would be godsend to people who don't like her or are upset about the Amazon loss of 27,000 jobs in New York," said veteran Democratic party strategist Hank Sheinkopf, warning: "Politics are unstable across the nation. Things are happening that we haven't seen or thought about before."Strategically speaking, a challenge to one of the most influential voices on the American left also could affect candidates in other, more marginal races. Within New York City, more than three dozen candidates promoting progressive, generational change are taking on congressional incumbents.In her own district, enthusiasm among supporters for Ocasio-Cortez is unwavering. The Working Families party "knows Ocasio-Cortez will beat any challengers who might arise because she's fighting tirelessly for her district and her agenda speaks to the people of Queens and the Bronx", the group said in a statement to the Guardian.But the Ocasio-Cortez campaign also knows that opposition to her remains deep within the Democratic party establishment. Open warfare broke out in July when the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, took aim at her and her close colleagues in the Squad. "All these people have is their public whatever and their Twitter world," Pelosi said. "But they didn't have any following. They're four people and that's how many votes they got."In a tweeted response, Ocasio-Cortez said: "That public 'whatever' is called public sentiment. And wielding the power to shift it is how we actually achieve meaningful change in this country."The progressive-moderate split could be clearly discerned, too, in the battle last year over the election of a new Queens district attorney when Tiffany Cabán, an Ocasio-Cortez-backed candidate running on a platform to reduce record levels of incarceration, initially declared victory with a margin of 1,100 votes.But establishment-backed candidate Melinda Katz demanded a recount and ultimately pulled ahead by 55 votes after a series of court challenges over voter eligibility.Ocasio-Cortez's most coherent Democratic challenger to date is former longtime CNBC correspondent and anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera. Caruso-Cabrera, who published a book in 2011 called You Know I'm Right: More Prosperity, Less Government, is a skeptic of big government and a proponent of free markets.Caruso-Cabrera is a relatively recent Democratic party member who registered her candidacy last week, appear to be preparing a more serious challenge as she seeks to take on Ocasio-Cortez in the Democratic primary."Caruso-Cabrero is as wild a card as AOC was two years ago," said Sheinkopf. "Caruso-Cabrero is likely to lead a spirited challenge and could be very competitive."She certainly fancies her chances."I am the daughter and granddaughter of working-class Italian and Cuban immigrants," Caruso-Cabrera said in a statement. "I am so lucky to have had such a wonderful career and I want everybody to have the opportunity that I've had. That's why I'm running."Ocasio-Cortez's campaign declined to comment on the challenge. But people close to the campaign said Caruso-Cabrera could be AOC's most potent opponent at least from the Democratic side, even though she represents a radically different vision of the party."It'll be interesting if she decides to hide her libertarian-conservative ideology," one source said. "Certain conservatives are upset that AOC beat Crowley and over Amazon so there maybe certain Koch-type figures who have had some role in recruiting her. I don't think [Caruso-Cabrera] is going to get young Democrats from around the country to work for her, but you could see young conservative activists in the district because they all spend so much time condemning her politics or lusting after her."However, candidates on both sides will be looking to raise money from outside the relatively poor, racially diverse district. Ocasio-Cortez's fame has long transcended the borders of her hardscrabble patch of the Bronx."AOC can raise an awful lot of money throughout the country from all sorts of people, but within the district there's not an awful lot of money to raise," said Sheinkopf.
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| 14 Americans on Evacuation Plane Test Positive for Coronavirus Posted: 17 Feb 2020 05:27 AM PST  Fourteen Americans aboard two chartered evacuation flights back to the U.S. have tested positive for the coronavirus, the State Department said Monday.The infected individuals were among hundreds released after two weeks in quarantine aboard a Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Yokohama, Japan, which was carrying about 380 Americans and their family members. Before boarding the flights, they were screened for the virus and found to be without symptoms and fit to fly, but officials afterwards learned they had tested positive.The two evacuation flights left from Tokyo, and one landed at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento, Calif., while the other landed at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas."These individuals were moved in the most expeditious and safe manner to a specialized containment area on the evacuation aircraft to isolate them in accordance with standard protocols," the State Department said in a statement."During the flights, these individuals will continue to be isolated from the other passengers," the statement said.Once in the U.S., those who tested positive will be quarantined for two weeks in "an appropriate location for continued isolation and care."So far, the U.S. has 15 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, not including the 14 new cases.The virus, a respiratory illness, originated in Wuhan, China, and has killed at least 1,770 people, most of whom were elderly or otherwise suffered from compromised immune systems, and infected over 70,000 in China.
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| German far right arrests reveal 'shocking' mosque attack plot Posted: 17 Feb 2020 03:57 AM PST  Members of a German extreme right group arrested last week were believed to have been plotting "shocking" large-scale attacks on mosques similar to the ones carried out in New Zealand last year, a government spokesman said Monday. Officials said that investigations into 12 men detained in police raids across Germany Friday had indicated they planned major attacks, following media reports over the weekend the group aimed to launch several simultaneous mass-casualty assaults on Muslims during prayers. "It's shocking what has been revealed here, that there are cells here that appear to have become radicalised in such a short space of time," interior ministry spokesman Bjoern Gruenewaelder told reporters at a Berlin press conference.
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| Biden accused Univision journalist Jorge Ramos of 'not telling the truth' during contentious interview comparing Obama and Trump's immigration policies Posted: 16 Feb 2020 11:05 AM PST  Biden and Ramos had an exchange at a Democratic debate about immigration in September, and Ramos followed up in a recent Univision interview.
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| 'Everything is a mess right now': Hundreds who were stuck on Westerdam cruise ship held up in Cambodia Posted: 17 Feb 2020 02:26 PM PST  The Holland America cruise ship nightmare seemed to be over, but things turned when one woman tested positive for coronavirus.
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| 14 Americans test positive for coronavirus after evacuation from quarantined cruise ship Posted: 17 Feb 2020 08:36 AM PST  More than 300 U.S. citizens and family members who had been on the Diamond Princess cruise ship were evacuated.
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| China legal activist who called on Xi to 'give way' arrested- activists Posted: 17 Feb 2020 03:20 AM PST |
| North Korea vs. South Korea: Who Wins a War Straight-Up? Posted: 16 Feb 2020 12:00 PM PST  Quality vs. quantity?
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| Suicide bomber in SW Pakistan kills 8 at Islamist rally Posted: 17 Feb 2020 06:20 AM PST  A powerful suicide bombing killed eight people and wounded 16 others in Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province on Monday, local police said, when it struck an Islamist rally in the regional capital. Police said the blast went off near Quetta's press club, where dozens of supporters for a Sunni militant group had gathered outside. City police chief Abur Razza Cheema said dozens of followers of the radical Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat party were rallying to pay tribute to Islam's first caliph when the bomber blew himself up there.
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| Would the Equal Rights Amendment Enshrine Abortion Rights in the Constitution? Posted: 17 Feb 2020 09:52 AM PST  Congressional Democrats are on a quest to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment. This week, the House of Representatives passed a measure attempting to nullify the deadline that Congress had imposed in the resolution sent to states for ratification in 1972.That deadline has long since come and gone, and the amendment failed to receive the necessary support from three-quarters of the states. But that isn't stopping Democrats from trying again, and many are convinced that it won't be long before the Equal Rights Amendment is added to the Constitution.In a vote backed by every Democratic representative and five Republicans, the House sought to erase the time limit placed on the amendment by Congress several decades ago. The move came shortly after Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg threw cold water on the progressive notion that enacting the amendment would simply be a matter of ignoring the congressionally created deadline.In remarks at the Georgetown University Law Center, Ginsburg suggested that, despite her long-time support for the amendment, it likely won't be able to come to fruition for quite some time. "I'd like to see it start over," Ginsburg said of the process to ratify the amendment. "There's too much controversy about latecomers — Virginia [approved it] long after the deadline passed," she added. "Plus, a number of states have withdrawn their ratification. So if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that said, 'We've changed our minds?'"Amid the controversy, House speaker Nancy Pelosi shepherded the new resolution through her chamber on Thursday, saying as she did so that the amendment "has nothing to do with the abortion issue."Her allies beg to differ."An ERA — properly interpreted — could negate the hundreds of laws that have been passed restricting access to abortion care and contraception," according to the National Organization for Women.NARAL Pro-Choice America agrees. "With its ratification, the ERA would reinforce the constitutional right to abortion by clarifying that the sexes have equal rights, which would require judges to strike down anti-abortion laws because they violate both the constitutional right to privacy and sexual equality," the group's website states.Lawyers for the National Women's Law Center have echoed this sentiment. Emily Martin, general counsel for the NWLC, told the Associated Press last month that the ERA would enable courts to rule that abortion restrictions "perpetuate gender inequality." Kelli Garcia, director of "reproductive-justice initiatives" and NWLC senior counsel, told Vice last May that "the ERA would help create a basis to challenge abortion restrictions."A recent Politico article, meanwhile, ran under the headline "How the debate over the ERA became a fight over abortion." "Conservatives argue that because only women can have abortions, any restrictions on the procedure could be deemed unconstitutional under the ERA," the article states. But this isn't a conservative argument at all — as noted above, this is how abortion supporters themselves view the amendment.For decades, many legal scholars in favor of abortion rights have disagreed with the logic of the justices' ruling in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion based on a supposed right to privacy located in the Constitution. Instead, these scholars argue, abortion rights are guaranteed to women under the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The ERA would enshrine in the Constitution a similar basis for this defense of abortion."Advocates for the ERA acknowledge that abortion needs to be part of the conversation. Any debate over women's rights, they say, must also address control over when and whether to have children," the Politico piece explains. "'There are no equal rights for women without access to abortion, plain and simple,' said Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president and CEO of Planned Parenthood."The same article notes that advocates of the amendment have dismissed as "a nonstarter" proposals from pro-life groups that they would support the ERA if it included language explicitly stating that it doesn't apply to abortion.Though the text of the ERA doesn't explicitly state that it exists to protect abortion rights — and to nullify abortion restrictions, including those that prevent taxpayer-funded abortion — its own supporters have long understood it to do exactly that.
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| Rwandan dissident singer found dead in custody: police Posted: 17 Feb 2020 03:43 AM PST  Kizito Mihigo, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide whose songs angered the government of strongman President Paul Kagame, was found dead in a police cell in the capital Kigali around 5am (0200 GMT). Mihigo, who was sentenced to 10 years' jail in 2015 for conspiracy against the government but later released on pardon, was captured trying to cross the border in Rwanda's south. Police spokesperson John Bosco Kabera said he was visited by family members and his lawyer during his detention.
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| Trump reportedly urged the CIA to hunt and kill Osama bin Laden's son instead of more pressing terrorist threats Posted: 16 Feb 2020 10:49 PM PST  Intelligence officials would reportedly give President Donald Trump lists of top terror targets, but Hamza bin Laden's name was the only one he knew.
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| Tennessee flooding: 'Unprecedented' floods make homes slide into river Posted: 17 Feb 2020 11:18 AM PST  Authorities managing dams in Tennessee and Mississippi must make difficult decisions as floodwaters swell along the states' rivers; the surging water pressing against the dams has to be released at some point, and when it does, it often spells disaster for individuals living downstream from the dams.Case in point: two large homes slid into the flood-swelled waters of the Tennessee River over the weekend.
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| Police allegedly held a black student at gunpoint. Now the governor wants an investigation Posted: 16 Feb 2020 04:13 PM PST  The governor of Illinois on Thursday urged police to investigate the alleged wrongful arrest of Jaylan Butler, a black college student swimmer.
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| Cruise passengers took Cambodia bus tours despite virus fears Posted: 17 Feb 2020 12:45 PM PST  A scramble intensified on Monday to trace passengers from a cruise liner —with more than 600 Americans aboard — allowed to disembark in Cambodia Thursday despite at least one traveler later being diagnosed with the coronavirus.
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| Coronavirus Proves One Thing: China's Rise Is Built on Quicksand Posted: 16 Feb 2020 09:34 AM PST  We may not build hospitals in 10 days with forced labor, but we are better able to create conditions where we don't have to.
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| American woman from cruise ship tests positive again for coronavirus Posted: 16 Feb 2020 12:25 PM PST  An American passenger from a cruise ship that docked in Cambodia has tested positive for the new coronavirus a second time in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysiam officials said on Sunday, after the cruise line and Cambodian authorities sought further tests.
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| Knife-Wielding Robbers in Hong Kong Steal 600 Rolls of Toilet Paper Amid Coronavirus Panic Posted: 16 Feb 2020 10:46 PM PST  Toilet paper has become scarce in the city following online rumors of shortages due to the coronavirus
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| Ex-wife of man accused of killing 8 describes 1st shooting Posted: 16 Feb 2020 07:53 PM PST  Sheena May was the only witness called Sunday at the trial in Magnolia, telling jurors her divorce had become final in recent days, The Daily Leader newspaper reported. The woman's ex-husband, Willie Cory Godbolt, 37, is charged with capital murder, accused of fatally shooting the eight, including the deputy who arrived at his in-laws' home in the long Memorial Day holiday weekend of May 2017. The killings began after Godbolt entered the in-laws' home in Bogue Chitto and got into an argument with his estranged wife and her family over the couple's two children, witness Vincent Mitchell testified earlier at trial, according to The Daily Leader.
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| Pakistan no longer a militant safe haven: PM Imran Khan Posted: 17 Feb 2020 07:13 AM PST  Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan insisted Monday that his country is no longer a militant safe haven, and said his administration fully supports the Afghan peace process. Khan's assertion was however challenged hours later, when a suicide bomber targeted a religious rally in the southwestern province of Balochistan. The premier's comments come as the US and the Taliban appear on the brink of a deal that would see US forces begin to pull out of Afghanistan.
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| A GOP senator keeps pushing a thoroughly debunked theory that the Wuhan coronavirus is a leaked Chinese biological weapon gone wrong Posted: 17 Feb 2020 07:52 AM PST  The conspiracy theory focuses on the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, a government lab near the meat market at the center of the outbreak.
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| Indiana professor is suspended for calling police on student who wouldn't switch seats Posted: 17 Feb 2020 01:46 PM PST  "This decision is in the best interest of Dr. Borna and the University," Ball State University said in a statement.
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| Airlines, officials trace path of couple diagnosed with coronavirus that flew from Hawaii Posted: 17 Feb 2020 10:50 AM PST  Delta and Hawaiian AIrlines are working with the CDC to trace the path of a couple who were diagnosed with coronavirus after returning from Hawaii.
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| How Can Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg Win the Democratic Nomination? Posted: 17 Feb 2020 07:05 AM PST  Before the primary, Buttigieg said his campaign had the 'strongest momentum.' What is that?
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| Indonesian authorities call for calm after radiation found at housing complex near Jakarta Posted: 17 Feb 2020 06:17 AM PST |
| Why Xi's 'defensive' coronavirus speech could backfire Posted: 16 Feb 2020 04:30 AM PST  Chinese state media published an internal speech delivered by President Xi Jinping on Saturday in which he describes taking action on the coronavirus outbreak as early as Jan. 7.In the speech, which was given Feb. 3, Xi said he had "issued demands about the efforts to prevent and control" the virus during a meeting of the Communist Party's highest council, the Politburo Standing Committee, last month, and that he personally authorized the lockdown of the epicenter, Wuhan, beginning on Jan. 23. "I have at every moment monitored the spread of the epidemic and progress in efforts to curtail it," he said.Publishing the speech is viewed as an attempt to show Xi has been involved from the start since he's been criticized for remaining in the shadows. "The overall tone of the speech of appears to be defensive," Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, told The New York Times. "He wants to change the narrative, which until this point has been very unfavorable to the top leadership."But some analysts think it could backfire and lead to even more criticism about how the government kept the public in the dark for too long. "It seems like he's trying to indicate that 'we weren't asleep at the wheel,'" Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Times. "But it comes off like 'we knew this was a problem, but we weren't sounding the alarm.'" Read more at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com Why Bloomberg would be the cynical choice for Democrats The real potential of the electric vehicle revolution What is platonic parenting?
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| 11 Children Among 26 People Shot During Single Weekend of Gun Violence in Chicago Posted: 17 Feb 2020 11:51 AM PST  According to the Chicago Police Department, there were a total of 15 shooting incidents over the weekend but that number could go up as the final numbers will be released tomorrow.
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| As Trump Gives Up on ‘Endless Wars,' Russia, China, and Iran Move In Posted: 17 Feb 2020 10:08 AM PST  JERUSALEM–Two decades of expanding operations against what United States Special Operations Command called a "global insurgency of state and non-state actors" has led to fatigue at home and questions abroad about U.S. strategy. Trump, Afghanistan, and 'The Tweet of Damocles'The latest Trump administration deal with the Taliban, challenges to the U.S. role in Syria and Iraq, and a potential reduction of forces in Africa point to a global trend in how the U.S. will deal with counter-insurgency in the future. What we're looking at is a global drawdown in U.S. forces committed to counter-terrorist operations at the same time President Donald Trump is demanding other countries, including NATO allies, do more. The idea is for the U.S. to focus on using technology, such as drones, while local forces do the fighting on the ground.This long-term shift has long-term consequences that mean countries such as Iran, China and Russia, which the U.S. sees as adversaries, will have a larger footprint in places where the U.S. is reducing its role. Outsourcing counter-terrorism to these countries may not have been the plan, but it is likely one outcome.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began a tour of Africa on Feb. 16 in Senegal where the Flintlock 2020 exercise is underway with neighboring Mauritania. Some 1,600 soldiers from 30 African states and western allies are participating in the annual drill from February 17-28. The U.S. says it is the year's "premier special operations" exercise that strengthens security across a swath of countries through what's called the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership. The concept, pushed in 2018 via an act of Congress, was to improve the capabilities of countries to fight terror.But the picture is bleaker than past U.S. statements have indicated. Funding to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars to fight terror spread across Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria and a dozen states from Senegal to Somalia hasn't reduced terror and has resulted in Washington's decision to reconsider what comes next. The U.S. pulled forces out of Libya in 2019 and three Americans were killed in an attack on a base in Kenya by Somalia's Al-Shabab in January.The Other Attack on Americans That Has U.S. Forces Unnerved: KenyaAlthough Pompeo says that "we'll get it right" in terms of U.S. commitment to a swath of African states, reports indicate the U.S. is reducing the footprint on the ground. Washington has "downgraded" efforts against extremists, the New York Times reported in mid-February. France, which sent hundreds more troops to the Sahel region recently, has warned this is a bad idea. The overall numbers could mean cutting in half the U.S. presence of 5,000 troops in a dozen locations.Changes in Africa strategy are only the tip of the iceberg of a much larger policy shift. On the one hand the U.S. National Defense Strategy wants to move away from counter-insurgency to competing against large states like Iran, China and Russia. The Pentagon believes that "inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security." Since U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) expanded from 47,000 in 2007 to 80,000 today, it might be argued that the U.S. has reached peak strength in fighting terror and now can move on successfully. The problem is that from Afghanistan to the Philippines to Niger there has not been a major success.In Afghanistan, where the U.S. has been fighting the Taliban for almost 20 years, some sort of peace deal is in the works. President Donald Trump has sought to end such "endless wars," and Democrats running to replace him also want to end this one. In Iraq and Syria the U.S. appears to be reducing its role as well. Trump twice announced a withdrawal from Syria only to relent and keep troops to protect "oil" while slowly walking away from America's anti-ISIS partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces.Plans to use bases in neighboring Iraq to "watch Iran" have not panned out and the U.S. finds itself pressured to leave most of Iraq after tensions with Iran boiled over in January following U.S. decision to blow away near Baghdad airport Iran's Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.Meanwhile, rocket fire has targeted U.S. bases and forces near the US embassy almost every week since October 2019.The long-term result in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and across Africa can be seen symbolically in what is already happening in the Philippines. For two decades Washington and Manila worked closely against extremist groups. Now Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte wants to scrap the Visiting Forces Agreement amid increasingly friendly relations with China.For a more isolationist-inclined American public that may not matter, but it does mean China and other countries will aid the Philippines in the fight against Islamist insurgents. That has implications across Asia and the Pacific. In Africa, Russian President Vladimir Putin has set his eyes on a larger role that includes priority access to vital mineral resources. He held a summit in October with African diplomats. Russia's Wagner group and other contractors play an increasing role in Sudan, the Central African Republic, Libya and Mozambique.In each place where the U.S. seeks a smaller footprint there will be a competition to fill the vacuum.France will try to fill it in Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Burkina Faso, the G5 countries it works with in the Sahel. But in many cases there won't be NATO powers that share U.S. values doing the heavy lifting. Instead it will be Russia, Iran, China, Turkey, and even Saudi Arabia or India playing a bigger role. That means counter-insurgency that looks more like Riyadh's campaign in Yemen, Russia's in Syria and Chechnya, China's in Xinjiang, Turkey's in Afrin, or India's in Kashmir. While that may fit the bill of a Trump administration that wants to spend less American treasure abroad and wants others to do more of the work, in the long term it means a fundamental change in the international role of the United States. It also means that in an attempt to shift resources to confronting major states, the U.S. will provide a vacuum for some of those states precisely–China, Russia and Iran–to play a greater role in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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| Japan suffers worst economic slump in five years Posted: 16 Feb 2020 06:22 PM PST  Japan has suffered its worst quarterly GDP contraction in more than five years, with a tax hike and a deadly typhoon taking a toll on the world's third-largest economy. The nation's gross domestic product in the three months to December shrank 1.6 percent from the previous quarter, even before the novel coronavirus outbreak in China hit Japan, according to official data published on Monday. The quarter was marked by a rise in consumption tax from eight percent to 10 percent, as well as Typhoon Hagibis, which killed more than 100 people and caused widespread flooding.
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| Russian intelligence agents reportedly went to Ireland to inspect undersea cables, and it's reigniting fears they could cut them and take entire countries offline Posted: 17 Feb 2020 04:49 AM PST  The agents could be gathering intelligence on deep-sea cables and spying on tech companies based in Dublin, security sources told The Sunday Times.
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