| Warren weighs her options. Endorsing Sanders is probably No. 1. Posted: 04 Mar 2020 12:44 PM PST  After a disastrous Super Tuesday, Warren has one last chance to make a difference in 2020.
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| EPA administrator criticizes inspector general's conclusions on Scott Pruitt's alleged abuses Posted: 04 Mar 2020 10:44 AM PST  EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said "there are a number of errors" in the inspector general's 2019 report that determined former EPA head Scott Pruitt misused $124,000 in government funds for, among other things, first-class travel.
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| A California man who self-quarantined after returning home from China amid the coronavirus outbreak said he is '100x more concerned' for his health in the US than he was in China Posted: 05 Mar 2020 11:50 AM PST  The Bay Area man saw how differently both governments handled the coronavirus outbreak after returning from a one-week trip to China.
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| Three family members charged with murder after locking boys in closet for 16 hours a day Posted: 04 Mar 2020 03:34 PM PST  An Arizona mother, father and grandmother were charged with murder and child abuse after confessing to keeping a six-year-old in a closet with his brother for "stealing food". The child died.Anthony Jose Archibeque-Martinez, 23, Elizabeth Archibeque-Martinez, 26, and Ann Marie Martinez, 50, were each charged with one count of first degree felony homicide and two counts each of child abuse. They are currently being held at the Coconino County Jail.
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| Moscow imposes 'high alert regime' to stem coronavirus outbreak Posted: 05 Mar 2020 11:26 AM PST  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.
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| Former Fox White House reporter Wendell Goler dies Posted: 05 Mar 2020 10:09 AM PST  Wendell Goler, a longtime White House correspondent for Fox News Channel who reported on government since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, has died at age 70. Goler was a Fox News original, joining the network at its inception in 1996 and working his way up to senior White House foreign affairs correspondent.
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| Students Protest Mormon Church's 'Explicitly Homophobic' Ruling on Brigham Young University's Honor Code Posted: 05 Mar 2020 03:50 PM PST  The Mormon church teaches that while experiencing same-sex attraction is not a sin, having same-sex sexual relations is
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| Large asteroid will fly close to, but won't hit, Earth next month: NASA Posted: 04 Mar 2020 07:48 AM PST  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.
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| Schumer to Gorsuch and Kavanaugh: Nice Little Court Ya Got There, Hate to See Anything Happen to It … Posted: 05 Mar 2020 03:30 AM PST  'If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices," argued Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78.If we ever needed a pristine example of why justices are bestowed lifetime appointments and shielded from the vagaries of the electorate and the intimidation tactics of unethical politicians, Chuck Schumer has now provided us with one.While speaking to pro-abortion protesters in front of the Supreme Court today, the Senate minority leader threatened -- there's no other way to put it -- two sitting justices with repercussions if they ruled to uphold a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to gain admitting privileges to hospitals before offering their services to women:> I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.It's conceivable that Schumer -- who, like the rest of his party, doesn't have the slightest interest in protecting babies who've survive botched abortions -- can't think of any good reason for hospital-admitting privileges. But treating as an "undue burden" any laws that require abortion clinics to provide basic medical facilities for women is just an example of the Democrats' extremism on the issue. Threatening justices over the case is hysterical.Moreover, Schumer's thuggish attack on Kavanaugh and Gorsuch is a transparent attempt to intimidate justices. And wow -- a sitting senator threatening an independent judiciary. Surely the champions of norms and decency will be horrified by this development. When Donald Trump, rather absurdly, demanded that Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse themselves from "Trump-related" Supreme Court cases because of their partisan positions -- and, yes Notorious RGB is openly partisan and anti-Trump -- it was a major national story. In this case, I suspect we're going to hear a lot about a general "coarsening" of discourse.Whatever the case, this an unprecedented attack on a justice of the Supreme Court. And by unprecedented, I mean that you won't be able to unearth a single instance in modern history of a member of Congress threatening a justice -- by name, no less -- for ruling against his wishes. Which is why, I imagine, Chief Justice John Roberts felt the need to release this statement:> Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All Members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.Sometimes, in highly charged debates over public policy, the moment gets the better of person. It's probably happened to all of us. Yet, rather than walking back his statement, Schumer compounded the ugly behavior by smearing the chief justice as a partisan ideologue, as well."For Justice Roberts to follow the right wing's deliberate misinterpretation of what Sen. Schumer said, while remaining silent when President Trump attacked Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg last week, shows Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes," Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman said in statement to USA Today. The senator meant only that there would be a "political price Republicans will pay for putting them on the court," Goodman added.First of all, is Schumer really arguing that being critical of justices is tantamount to threatening them? If that's the case, why, during Obama's State of the Union address in 2010, did Schumer stand and clap for Obama's norm-breaking attack on the Supreme Court justices who had upheld the First Amendment in Citizens United? It seems clear that Obama was attempting to manipulate court, as well, but at least he had the decency not to sound like some wannabe Mafioso.By accusing Roberts of misrepresenting his comments for partisan reasons, Schumer (via his spokesman) is obviously trying to influence the chief justice, as well. But he's lying. Schumer's initial statement specifically and unequivocally named two justices -- one of whom he and his colleagues had already attempted to humiliate and defame. He was not calling out the Republicans who put Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Court.Schumer doesn't have the power to follow through on any threats, thankfully. His attack, like many less obvious ones, is just part of the Left's concerted effort to delegitimize the court, denigrate its justices, and undermine the legality of its decisions. This isn't surprising, since the Constitution -- and the jurists who are inclined to uphold it -- is the biggest impediment to the progressive agenda. So expect a lot more of this.
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| San Francisco's first 2 coronavirus cases were just confirmed — authorities say the disease is likely being transmitted in the city Posted: 05 Mar 2020 11:42 AM PST  "We do not know at this point how they were exposed to the virus, which suggests it is spreading in the community," the city's health director said.
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| Dubai’s Ruler, Sheikh Mohammed, Abducted and Imprisoned Daughters, Says London Court Posted: 05 Mar 2020 10:34 AM PST  LONDON—Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, the ruler of Dubai, ordered his henchmen to abduct two of his daughters and force them into captivity after they tried to flee from his controlling grasp, according to a British court.One of the women was subjected to inhumane treatment amounting to torture in the view of a British High Court judge, whose findings about the 70-year-old leader were unsealed in London on Thursday. Sir Andrew McFarlane, the most senior family judge in England, published his findings as part of a case that was brought to protect two of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's younger children, who currently live in the U.K. Their mother is the daughter of Jordan's late King Hussein. The Dubai ruler failed in a bid at the Supreme Court to have the judgment kept secret. Inside the Secret World of Arab PlayboysThe judge found that Sheikha Latifa was imprisoned after trying to escape Dubai in 2002 and 2018. In her most recent bid for freedom, she made it as far as the coast of India before special forces snatched her and her Finnish friend Tiina Jauhiainen.In a carefully orchestrated plot, the pair had fled to the coast of the United Arab Emirates in disguise, boarded a dingy, ridden jet skis and then made it to a rendezvous with a yacht that took them out of the UAE's territorial waters."The last time [I saw Latifa], she was kicking and screaming and she was dragged off the boat. Her pleas for asylum were ignored," Jauhiainen told Reuters.The British judge found in favor of Jauhiainen's account of the abduction.McFarlane said that Latifa was held in captivity "on the instructions of her father" for more than three years after her first escape attempt. He said her claims of serious physical abuse, amounting to torture, were credible. At the time of her apprehension, she said she would only be released if "I'm dead, or I'm in a very, very, very bad situation.""She was pleading for the soldiers to kill her rather than face the prospect of going back to her family in Dubai," the judge said. "I conclude, on the balance of probability, that Latifa's account of her motives for wishing to leave Dubai represents the truth. She was plainly desperate to extricate herself from her family and prepared to undertake a dangerous mission in order to do so."The Missing Princess of Dubai: Foiled Escape or Complete Fraud?The judge said Sheikha Shamsa had also fled from her overbearing father when they were staying on a property in South-East England in 2000. Agents of Sheikh Mohammed allegedly captured her outside Cambridge, injected her with a sedative, and took her back to Dubai, where the judge said she "has been deprived of her liberty for much if not all of the past two decades."Cambridgeshire police tried to travel to Dubai to investigate the abduction at the time, but they were denied permission to enter the rich Arab emirate. Charles Geekie, a lawyer for the sheikh's former wife, said the British government had intervened in the case.The judge, who said the sheikh "continues to maintain a regime whereby both these two young women are deprived of their liberty," also found that the ruler of Dubai conducted a "campaign of fear and intimidation" against his sixth wife, Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein.Princess Haya, half sister of Jordan's King Abdullah, fled her husband at the start of 2019. She said she had been subjected to a "campaign of fear and intimidation" ever since and applied for a British court to protect their children from the kind of abuse to which Sheikh Mohammed had subjected his older children.Geekie told the court that anonymous notes had been left in Princess Haya's bedroom. One of them said, "We will take your son—your daughter is ours—your life is over."On another occasion, a UAE helicopter pilot landed in the princess' garden and told her he was there to take one passenger to Awir, which is the site of a prison in the desert.Her former husband also condemned her in a poem posted on Instagram entitled, "You Lived and You Died." The judge concluded that he agreed with Geekie's claim that these recent threats fit into a pattern of behavior that stretched back to the first abduction of one of the sheikh's children in 2000. "[There are] a number of common themes, at the core of which is the use of the state and its apparatus to threaten, intimidate, mistreat and oppress with a total disregard for the rule of law."The case began after Princess Haya asked for her children with Sheikh Mohammed—Jalila, 12, and Zayed, 8—to become wards of the court and protected from being taken back to Dubai. Princess Haya alleged that her husband had arranged for Jalila, who was 11 at the time, to be married to Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. The judge said he had not seen enough evidence to prove that that arrangement had been made.The princess said she had been "terrified" of her ex-husband, who divorced her without her knowledge in February last year on the 20th anniversary of the death of her father, King Hussein of Jordan.The judge said it was "clear the date will have been chosen... to maximize insult and upset to her."After the findings were made public, Sheikh Mohammed, who had refused to attend the hearings, said, "This case concerns highly personal and private matters relating to our children… As a head of government, I was not able to participate in the court's fact-finding process. This has resulted in the release of a 'fact-finding' judgment which inevitably only tells one side of the story."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. 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| Biden appears to close the door on Warren joining his administration: ‘We need her continued work in the Senate’ Posted: 05 Mar 2020 01:42 PM PST  Joe Biden hailed Elizabeth Warren as "the fiercest of fighters for middle class families" after she decided to suspend her presidential campaign, while seemingly closing the door to the senator joining his potential White House administration.The former vice president celebrated Ms Warren in a statement posted to his Twitter account shortly after she announced her decision to end a bid for the Democratic nomination on Thursday, writing: "Her work in Washington, in Massachusetts, and on the campaign trail has made a real difference in people's lives."
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| With North Korea border shut, China warns citizens to keep away, or else Posted: 05 Mar 2020 03:23 AM PST  SINGAPORE/SEOUL (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have told people to stay away from the border with North Korea, which has banned people from China to keep out the coronavirus, or risk being shot by North Korean guards, residents of the area said. Residents said the warning came in a printed notice that Chinese authorities in the area issued this week, the latest indication of how seriously North Korea takes the threat of the virus. Close allies China and North Korea share a 1,400-km (880-mile) frontier that is especially porous in winter, when rivers separating the countries freeze, allowing people to cross.
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| Michigan lawmaker disciplined after sexual harassment probe Posted: 05 Mar 2020 11:12 AM PST  A Michigan lawmaker was stripped of a committee chairmanship and ordered to undergo training Thursday after the state Senate concluded allegations of sexual harassment lodged by several women, including a legislator, were credible. Republican Sen. Peter Lucido of Macomb County's Shelby Township lost his position leading the Senate Advice and Consent Committee. The Senate had opened an investigation in January after a young reporter, Allison Donahue of Michigan Advance, complained that Lucido made a sexist comment to her before a group of high school boys.
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| Australian man tasered in toilet paper scrap Posted: 04 Mar 2020 10:50 PM PST  A fight over toilet roll ended with a man being tasered, Australian police said Thursday, as coronavirus concerns drive panic buying. Police were called to a store in the New South Wales town of Tamworth, about four hours drive north of Sydney, after the man allegedly lashed out and attacked another customer and a worker. Coronavirus fears have triggered runs on several products, including hand sanitisers and face masks, with images of shoppers stacking trolleys with toilet rolls spreading on social media.
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| FISA Court Blacklists FBI Agents Involved in Surveilling Carter Page Posted: 05 Mar 2020 07:28 AM PST  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.Boasberg also called for a higher bar in regards to the disclosure of exculpatory evidence, and ordered agents to swear in future cases that any FISA warrant application contains "all information that might reasonably call into question the accuracy of the information or the reasonableness of any F.B.I. assessment in the application, or otherwise raise doubts about the requested findings."DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz detailed in his December report on the FBI's "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation how the Bureau knowingly omitted details of Page's prior working relationship with the CIA, as well as numerous potentially exculpatory statements he made to other sources, which undercut the Steele Dossier's allegations used in the FBI's warrants.Horowitz also described how "FBI officials at every level" — including former deputy director Andrew McCabe and former director James Comey — reached a consensus that Steele was a reliable source, despite overhead concerns that his allegations could be biased given that he had been contracted by the Democratic National Committee through the research firm Fusion GPS.
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| As the coronavirus spreads, one study predicts that even the best-case scenario is 15 million dead and a $2.4 trillion hit to global GDP Posted: 05 Mar 2020 06:40 AM PST  A group of Australian researchers estimate that the coronavirus may have severe consequences on the global GDP.
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| The Best Mowers for Big Lawns Posted: 05 Mar 2020 10:34 AM PST |
| FISA court bars FBI agents involved in surveilling Carter Page Posted: 05 Mar 2020 10:15 AM PST  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.
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| Elizabeth Warren and Her Supporters Now Have Tremendous Power to Shape the Rest of the Primary Posted: 05 Mar 2020 02:54 PM PST  Senator Elizabeth Warren declined to endorse Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, saying she wanted to take time to think before making a decision.
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| U.S. opposes releasing a dying Bernard Madoff from prison early Posted: 04 Mar 2020 07:27 PM PST  The U.S. government opposed Bernard Madoff's request to be freed from prison even if he is close to death from kidney failure, saying he has never accepted responsibility for his massive Ponzi scheme or shown compassion for victims. In a Wednesday night court filing, prosecutors said denying the 81-year-old Madoff's request would uphold victims' and public faith in the justice system. "Madoff's crimes were extraordinarily evil," prosecutors said.
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| Virus halts pilgrimages to Mecca, Friday prayers in Iran Posted: 04 Mar 2020 02:57 AM PST  The coronavirus outbreak disrupted Islamic worship in the Middle East as Saudi Arabia on Wednesday banned its citizens and other residents of the kingdom from performing the pilgrimage in Mecca, while Iran canceled Friday prayers in major cities. The decisions in Riyadh and Tehran affected both Sunni and Shiite Muslims alike. The Saudi move expands a ban last week on foreigners visiting Mecca and Medina, home to the holiest sites in Islam.
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| Nigeria Senate Approves President’s $23 Billion Loan Request Posted: 05 Mar 2020 09:18 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria's Senate approved President Muhammadu Buhari's plan to borrow $22.7 billion from external creditors to finance infrastructure projects.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 loans will have a positive influence on the GDP of this country," Senate President Ahmed Lawan said.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. The International Monetary Fund has warned that without major revenue reforms, the debts could rise to almost 36% of GDP by 2024, with interest payments taking as much as 75% of government revenue.(Updates with Senate President's comment in second paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Anthony Osae-Brown in Lagos at aosaebrown2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Dulue MbachuFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump denies official coronavirus death rate based on his 'hunch' and suggests people with deadly virus can go to work Posted: 05 Mar 2020 02:49 AM PST  Donald Trump has denied the official global death rate for coronavirus reported by health experts because he has a "hunch" it is lower.The president described the 3.4 per cent global death rate given by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday as a "false number" in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity and gave medical advice which contradicted his public health experts.
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| A passenger who was on a Princess cruise has died of the coronavirus in California. The ship is headed for San Francisco, but Gov. Newsom said it would not dock. Posted: 04 Mar 2020 05:05 PM PST  The Grand Princess — which is not the Diamond Princess — is set to arrive near San Francisco Thursday. It's unclear if passengers will be quarantined.
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| Border Patrol waited to call EMS for U.S. man who later died Posted: 04 Mar 2020 11:13 PM PST  The agency told Congress that agents called an ambulance "immediately," but call logs reviewed by CBS News show a lengthy delay.
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| Turkey-Russia agreed ceasefire in Syria's Idlib comes into force Posted: 05 Mar 2020 05:18 PM PST  A ceasefire in northern Syria agreed between Russia and Turkey came into force on Friday, aiming to halt intense fighting that has sparked a humanitarian disaster and raised fears of their armies clashing. The deal struck between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan comes after an escalation of violence in Idlib, the northwestern province of Syria where Ankara is battling Moscow-backed government forces. Nearly a million civilians have fled their homes due to the bloodshed and dozens of Turkish soldiers have been killed.
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| Michigan Governor Endorses Biden: ‘All Roads to the White House Lead Through My State’ Posted: 05 Mar 2020 10:41 AM PST  Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, on Thursday endorsed Joe Biden ahead the of the state's March 10 primary."I've been watching this campaign play out, and there's been sources of inspiration in a variety of candidates," Whitmer said on MSNBC's Morning Joe. "But as we go into Michigan's election on Tuesday, I am going to be voting for Joe Biden." The former vice president is currently battling progressive Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) for a win in the primary."I think we all know Michigan is incredibly important," Whitmer said. "All roads to the White House lead through my state and I want to make sure that we've got a strong ability to help impact where we are headed as a nation."On Thursday Sanders canceled a planned rally in Mississippi and announced he would travel to Michigan instead, highlighting the importance of the state's primary.Whitmer's endorsement follows the release of a Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll showing Biden leading Sanders in Michigan with 29 percent support among likely Democratic primary voters, compared to Sanders's 22.5 percent. While the poll indicated that the race was still fluid, it also pointed to possible problems for Sanders. The Vermont senator has failed to gain support among elderly voters, who are more likely to turn out to vote in the primary. And, complicating matters, many of Michigan's major universities will be on spring break, meaning it will be more difficult for Sanders to organize among college-age voters.The poll was taken before Biden's Super Tuesday victories. Senator Elizabeth Warren's (D., Mass.) announcement on Thursday that she was ending her presidential campaign could sway the primary race in either direction as her former supporters decide who to choose.Warren has declined to immediately endorse either Biden or Sanders and is reportedly considering not weighing in on either candidate's behalf.
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| Palestinians declare state of emergency over coronavirus: prime minister Posted: 05 Mar 2020 12:34 PM PST  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a 30-day state of emergency on Thursday after coronavirus cases were reported in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. The decree was announced by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh hours after officials closed Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplaces of Jesus, and banned foreign tourists from West Bank hotels. "We have decided to declare a state of emergency in all Palestinian areas to confront the danger of the coronavirus and prevent it from spreading," Shtayyeh said, reading from the decree.
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| 1 Killed and 5 Injured, Including 7-Year-Old Girl, in Shooting at California Family's 'Celebration of Life' Party Posted: 05 Mar 2020 07:27 AM PST  Tulare Sgt. Ed Hinojosa said the shooter fired multiple rounds at a "party or some type of celebration of life" occurring with about 50 to 60 people present .
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| China's Handling of the Coronavirus Has United Its People Against the Government Posted: 05 Mar 2020 12:30 AM PST  How China's Great Firewall was breached.
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| New York state coronavirus cases double to 22; Senate overwhelmingly passes $8.3 billion spending bill Posted: 05 Mar 2020 01:44 PM PST  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.
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| Coronavirus questions answered by a doctor: Should I panic? What are best prevention steps? Posted: 05 Mar 2020 06:57 AM PST  No one is immune to the novel coronavirus, Dr. Thomas File says. So, everyone is potentially at risk. Here's what you should know about COVID-19.
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| From kissing bans to the death penalty: Here's how seriously different countries are taking the coronavirus outbreak Posted: 05 Mar 2020 07:46 AM PST  In Japan, officials shut schools and suspended sports games while Iran warned that hoarding medical equipment could result in a death penalty.
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| The Immigrant Racing To Deliver a Coronavirus Vaccine Never Would Have Made It to Trump’s America Posted: 04 Mar 2020 01:46 AM PST  President Trump was getting inaugurated later that week, so he was understandably absent when Bill Gates issued a prescient warning at the 2017 World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland."Ebola and Zika showed that the world is tragically unprepared to detect local outbreaks and respond quickly enough to prevent them from becoming global pandemics," Gates said. "Without investments in research and development, we will remain unequipped when we face the next threat."In answer to that threat, Gates announced the formation of The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). Private and public entities would join together with an essential goal.U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Keep Climbing. So Do Fears of Spread."The ability to rapidly develop and deliver vaccines when new 'unknown' diseases emerge offers our best hope to outpace outbreaks, save lives and avert disastrous economic consequences," Gates said.The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was kicking in $100 million. Another $100 million was coming from the Wellcome Trust, a British foundation headed by Dr. Jeremy Farrar, who co-authored a 2015 article in the New England Journal of Medicine titled "Establishing a Global Vaccine-Development Fund."Along with vaccine pioneer Dr. Stanley Plotkin and the now deceased Dr. Adel Mahmoud, Farrar described an urgent need for such a fund to "provide the resources and the momentum" to carry vaccines through what they called "the so-called valley of death" of procedural hurdles that slow development and testing.At the launch of CEPI in Davos, Farrar said, "We know from Ebola, Zika and SARS that epidemics are among the significant threats we face to life, health and prosperity."He went on, "Vaccines can protect us, but we've done too little to develop them as an insurance policy. CEPI is our chance to learn the lessons of recent tragedies, and outsmart epidemics with new vaccine defences."He concluded, "If others join us in supporting CEPI, we can realise our goal of creating a safer world."Those who joined included Norway, which put in $120 million and provided CEPI with a homebase. Japan put in $125 million. Other contributions came from Germany, Britain, Canada, Ethiopia, Australia and Belgium.Those who did not join included the United States, which had had plenty of opportunity over the past three years. Our germaphobe-in-chief does not seem to know much about germs, imagining that he could better keep America safe with a border wall than with vaccines against a real threat. And that gave rise to a certain irony on Monday, when Trump and Vice President Pence met with pharmaceutical executives in the cabinet room at the White House to discuss the prospects of vaccine for novel coronavirus, COVID-19."How fast can you get it done?" Trump asked.The most optimistic answer came from the founder and CEO of a company that has benefited from CEPI funding. "Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, my name is Joseph Kim," the executive began. "I run a company called Inovio Pharmaceuticals out of Pennsylvania. We're a proud American biotech company with R&D; and manufacturing in California as well. Inovio is the leader in coronavirus vaccine development in the world."Kim reported that when the threat of COVID-19 became clear, his company applied "our very innovative 21st-century" technology to the genetic profile of the virus that Chinese authorities made public. "By getting just the DNA sequence of the virus, we were able to fully construct our vaccine within three hours," Kim went on. "Our plan is to start the US-based clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccine in April of this year, followed by shortly thereafter a trial in China and South Korea. There are a lot more infections in those areas.""We can give you an area, too," Trump said. "I mean, you take a look at Seattle again, we can give you an area.""Absolutely," Kim said."If you don't mind, yeah," Trump said."With existing resources and capacity, by end of this year, Inovio could deliver about one million doses," Kim said. "But to scale beyond that, we need your help, Mr. President. We need to work with you and your agencies… to help us scale our vaccine to manufacture in America, to protect the American public, also to lead the world in vaccine development from America. Thank you very much."Here came an added irony, for "thank you" was the only English Kim knew when he emigrated to America from Korea four decades ago, at the age of 11. He arrived with his mother, who brought her life savings of $300. They would have been excluded under the means test for immigrants the Trump administration instituted last month. "All right, thank you very much," Trump now told Kim. "You'll have our help. Thank you."The other firms represented at the meeting included Moderna, which has also received CEPI funding to speed up the vaccine process. Moderna told Trump it has already produced several vials and plans to begin testing in the spring. A third firm in the race to develop a vaccine, Novavax, has received funding not from CEPI, but directly from Gates' foundation. Gates is proving "billionaire" is not necessarily a pejorative.Inovio is favored to win the race. If it does, we would all have cause to share Kim's gratitude for the person who did even more than Gates, Farrar, and CEPI to make a vaccine possible."I thank my mom's foresight," he told Pharmaceutical Executive magazine. "She brought me to America mostly for my education and better economic opportunities. It's a typical immigrant story." Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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| Romney Claims Senate Probe into Hunter Biden ‘Appears Political’ Posted: 05 Mar 2020 09:37 AM PST  Senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah) warned Thursday that Senator Ron Johnson's (R., Wis.) probe into the Bidens and Burisma "appears political," and would not comment whether he would vote for a subpoena that Johnson is planning."There's no question that the appearance of looking into Burisima and Hunter Biden appears political. I think people are tired of these kind of political investigations," Romney told reporters, adding that he needs to meet with Johnson to "see what information he has" before deciding on a vote.But he suggested he was uncomfortable with the probe, implying that it was not within the purview of the Senate Homeland Security Committee — which Johnson chairs and Romney serves on."I would hope that there's something of significance that needs to be evaluated that would be done perhaps the FBI or some other agency, although it's not as political as perhaps a committee of our body," he said. "We also have a lot of work to do on matters that are not related to Burisma. We probably ought to focus on those things."Johnson, who has been looking into Burisma since November, wants to vote next week on a subpoena to compel the testimony of former Ukrainian embassy official Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a consultant for Blue Star Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm that Burisma hired to combat accusations of corruption. Blue Star tried to leverage the Biden name to secure meetings with the State Department during its campaign to rehabilitate Burisma's image.Johnson told Fox News that his probe was not politically motivated on Wednesday, and was simply to let "the American people see what this possible corruption is." He added that probe had unearthed a document which showed Blue Star apologizing to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office for a "misinformation campaign" against Ukrainian prosecutor Victor Shokin, who Joe Biden bragged about getting fired.Johnson also told CNN that he thinks he has enough votes to bring the subpoena, although Romney's opposition could scuttle the effort.
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| Woman uses drone to look for son's body in Mexico's killing fields Posted: 05 Mar 2020 01:39 PM PST  Leticia Hidalgo smears her face with sunscreen and walks steadily across the weedy wasteland she has come to know as one of Mexico's killing fields. Mexico has been overwhelmed by an escalation of narco violence that has left more than 60,000 people missing since 2006. Hidalgo's son Roy is one of them, and she believes he could well be here, somewhere beneath the scrubland at her feet, in what she calls a likely "place of extermination."
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| What The Satanic Temple is and why it's opening a debate about religion Posted: 05 Mar 2020 04:46 AM PST  A group called The Satanic Temple went to court in their lawsuit against the city of Scottsdale, Arizona, for religious discrimination in January 2020.The city's attorneys argued that they could not possibly be guilty of religious discrimination because The Satanic Temple is not a religion. This argument prompted the judge in the case, Justice David Campbell, to ask, "What is religion?"I am a professor of religious studies, and part of my job is getting students to think critically about the definition of religion. After studying The Satanic Temple for my book, "Speak of the Devil," I find the most interesting thing about this group is the way it disrupts commonly held ideas about what religion is. History of the groupThe Satanic Temple was created in 2013 by two friends using the pseudonyms Malcolm Jarry and Lucien Greaves. Many members of The Satanic Temple use pseudonyms because of threats and hate mail that they receive.Members of The Satanic Temple do not believe in God or the devil. Its beliefs are articulated in "the seven tenets." These tenets emphasize reason and science as well as values such as compassion and justice. The first tenet states, "One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason." Other tenets address bodily autonomy, the freedom to offend and taking responsibility for one's mistakes.It was a series of political actions invoking religious freedom that brought the group into the public eye. They demanded the same privileges for Satanists that many Christians take for granted, such as erecting religious monuments on government property and using government meetings to present sectarian prayers.Today there are 24 official chapters of the group throughout North America and Europe, ranging in membership from a dozen to over 100 people. Chapters can be found in coastal cities but also in the South and the Midwest. Texas is home to four chapters, more than any other state. There are also thousands of supporters with individual memberships or in unofficial chapters with names like "Friends of The Satanic Temple, Arkansas." Political actionsOne of the group's political goals is to advocate for the value of the separation of church and state. Their strategy is to remind the public that if Christians can use government resources to assert their cultural dominance, then Satanists are free to do the same.After Oklahoma installed a monument of the Ten Commandments at its State Capitol in 2012, the group demanded that their statue of a satanic deity, Baphomet, a winged-goat-like creature, be installed next to it. The group received US$30,000 in donations from people around the country to build the statue.The Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered the Ten Commandments monument removed. However, thousands of people extended their support to The Satanic Temple, leading to the creation of the group's first few chapters. Prayer invocationsThe trouble in Scottsdale, Arizona, began in 2014 when the Supreme Court ruled in Greece v. Galloway that city councils and other government bodies may begin meetings with "invocations" that involve sectarian prayers. What this meant was that the government could invite a pastor to say, "We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," as long as they did not discriminate against religious groups who wanted to give the invocation.The Satanic Temple took the Supreme Court at their word. In 2016 they asked Scottsdale to open a city council meeting with the following prayer:> "Let us stand now, unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds in darkened times. Let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old.> > "Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations. Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true.> > "Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of One or All. That which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is Done. Hail Satan." Backlash against the SatanistsInitially Scottsdale officials agreed. Satanist Michelle Shortt, a member of the Arizona chapter, was scheduled to speak before a council meeting that April.But then the Christian backlash began. In court, attorneys discussed how one church sent over 15,000 emails demanding the Satanists be uninvited, crashing the city's email system. Scottsdale officials cancelled Shortt's invocation and declared a new policy that all invocation speakers must have "a substantial connection to the Scottsdale community."When the Satanists sued, Judge Campbell ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove Scottsdale officials acted out of religious prejudice. What is religion?However, an important outcome of the case was that Campbell rejected Scottsdale's claim that The Satanic Temple is not a "real religion" or seeks only to mock actual religions.The debate over what constitutes religion is an old one. In 1961, the Supreme Court acknowledged in Torcaso v. Watkins that there are many religions like Buddhism, Confucianism and even expressions of Judaism that are just not interested in God. Torcaso v. Watkins did not define religion; it merely ruled that religion is not synonymous with theism.Scholars of religion have suggested that religion is not reducible to theism or indeed any one element. They have noted that the word religion is used differently in different contexts.For example, religion scholar Catherine Albanese, in her 1981 book "America: Religions and Religion," presented religions as systems consisting of "four 'c's." These include creed, or a set of beliefs; code, or rules; cultus, meaning rituals; and community. In other words, religion is much more than the sum of its parts.Religion can also be redefined to serve certain political interests. For example, in 2012 the state of Florida could not legally execute paranoid schizophrenic and convicted murderer John Errol Ferguson because the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the mentally ill must understand they will die when they are executed. Ferguson stated he could not die because he was an immortal "prince of God." The state circumvented this law by ruling that Ferguson's delusions were a religious conviction and proceeded with the execution.The word religion lends itself to such creative legal uses precisely because it has no set definition. As religion scholar Russell McCutcheon says, religion's "utility is linked to its inability to be defined." The Satanic Temple is significant because it renders this sort of verbal slipperiness less tenable. If this group can no longer be dismissed as a "hoax," people might be forced to think a bit more about what religion is.[You're too busy to read everything. We get it. That's why we've got a weekly newsletter. Sign up for good Sunday reading. ]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * The changing nature of America's irreligious explained * Giving thanks, but to whom? Fewer Americans embrace organized religionJoseph P. Laycock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| Former GOP congressman comes out as gay Posted: 05 Mar 2020 02:39 AM PST  The one-time Illinois congressman said he would be fighting for LGBT rights now if he was still in office.
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| Coronavirus death toll hits 12 in U.S., helicopter flies test kits to cruise ship Posted: 05 Mar 2020 06:50 AM PST  The death toll from coronavirus in the United States rose to 12 on Thursday with the latest fatality recorded in King County, Washington, and 53 new cases broke out across the country, striking for the first time in Colorado, Tennessee, Texas and San Francisco. A helicopter flew testing kits to a cruise liner idled off the coast of California and barred from docking in San Francisco after at least 35 people developed flu-like symptoms aboard the ship, which has been linked to two other confirmed cases of COVID-19. Twenty new cases of the virus were confirmed in King County, Washington, local health officials said, bringing the total in the county to 51 with 11 deaths.
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| The Time for Containment Is Over. Welcome to the Next Phase of Coronavirus Posted: 05 Mar 2020 03:41 AM PST  If coronavirus teaches government and public health leaders anything, it's that containment is more of an ideal than a practical strategy.
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| China is recording so few new coronavirus infections that South Korea looks like the new center of the epidemic Posted: 05 Mar 2020 01:55 AM PST  The coronavirus is spreading in several new hot-spot countries — notably South Korea and Iran — but slowing considerably in China.
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| 'Serial stowaway' beaten in jail after she was imprisoned, despite calls for her to be treated in community Posted: 05 Mar 2020 10:48 AM PST  The "serial stowaway", Marilyn Hartman, has been beaten up inside a Chicago jail.Ms Hartman is currently serving time in Cook County Jail for violating her probation.
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