| Roosevelt who? 2020 Democrats steer clear of talking history Posted: 09 Mar 2020 04:01 PM PDT  Modern politicians talk less and less about the traditions and legacy of their own political parties. Joe Biden's rise in the Democratic primary shows this might be a misjudgment.
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| Should daylight saving time be eliminated? Posted: 08 Mar 2020 08:22 AM PDT  A push to end the practice of changing clocks twice a year is gaining steam in parts of the U.S. Should daylight saving time be abolished nationwide?
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| Experts: Rapid testing helps explain few German virus deaths Posted: 09 Mar 2020 10:27 AM PDT  Germany has confirmed more than 1,100 cases of the new coronavirus but — so far — just two deaths, far fewer than other European countries with a similar number of reported infections. Experts said Monday that rapid testing as the outbreak unfolded meant Germany has probably diagnosed a much larger proportion of those who have been infected, including younger patients who are less likely to develop serious complications. "We in Germany were simply at the forefront in terms of diagnostics," said Christian Drosten, the director of the Institute for Virology at Berlin's Charite hospital.
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| A Japan Airlines flight attendant tested positive for the coronavirus after flying between Tokyo and Chicago Posted: 09 Mar 2020 07:36 AM PDT  Japan Airlines said 12 other cabin crew members came in close contact with the female staffer. They have been asked to stay home.
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| Czech prime minister says China should replace its ambassador Posted: 09 Mar 2020 09:46 AM PDT  China should replace its ambassador in the Czech Republic after the Chinese embassy sent a threatening letter to Czech authorities, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said.
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| As markets plummet, Trump says White House to seek possible payroll tax cuts Posted: 09 Mar 2020 04:03 PM PDT  President Trump on Monday evening said he will speak with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Republicans about a possible payroll tax cut that would provide "very substantial relief" amid the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic."We have a great economy, a very strong economy, but this has blindsided the world," Trump said. The coronavirus epidemic, as well as Saudi Arabia cutting oil export prices by nearly 10 percent, is worrying investors, and on Monday, U.S. stocks fell more than 7 percent in the Dow's worst day since 2008. Trump said he wants to meet with McConnell on Tuesday, and in addition to discussing a payroll tax cut, he will also bring up "hourly wage earners getting help so they can be in a position where they are not ever going to miss a paycheck."Trump said the COVID-19 epidemic is "not our country's fault, this is something we've been throw into," and the government is working with the airline, cruise, and travel industries as they will feel the effects of people staying home. "The main thing is we are taking care of the American public," he said.More stories from theweek.com Washington nursing home with coronavirus outbreak reported shocking escalation from 'no symptoms to death' Trump retweets White House photo of him fiddling, says he doesn't know 'what this means' GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz self-quarantines for coronavirus exposure just 1 hour after flying with Trump
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| Pakistan, northern India face renewed threat of flooding from rounds of showers, thunderstorms Posted: 09 Mar 2020 09:14 AM PDT  After flooding and landslides caused numerous deaths in Pakistan late last week, parts of the country are bracing for the arrival of another potent storm system.The storm will track from southern Iran into Pakistan through Tuesday before arriving in northern Pakistan on Wednesday.Showers and thunderstorms will spread from eastern Afghanistan into far northern India, including the states of Himachal, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh by Wednesday. Steadier and heavier rain is forecast for far eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan and into far northern India as the storm forces moisture into the meeting point of the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountains.By Friday, the storm will begin to move east. Rain and storms will begin to gradually taper off across Pakistan, but they will spread east along the Himalayas into northeastern India and Bhutan.Through the second half of the week, isolated showers and thunderstorms are also expected to develop in parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal of eastern India.A couple of storms can drift into northwestern Bangladesh.CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APPRainfall totals up to 13-25 mm (0.5-1 inch) will be common across the region from this system, but totals can accumulate up to 25-50 mm (1-2 inches) in areas of heavier rain. An AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 150 mm (6 inches) is possible in the mountains of Pakistan and far northern India.Localized flooding will be possible in areas of poor drainage and in any downpours that develop through the second half of the week. Northern Pakistan will face the greatest risk after torrential rain caused flooding late last week and into this past weekend.Flooding and landslides in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan were to blame for at least 17 deaths and officials in the province declared a weather emergency to help relocate residents displaced by the disaster, reported The Express Tribune.Colder air arriving with the storm will cause precipitation to fall as snow in higher elevations, but it could also pose a risk to those displaced in the mountainous areas of Pakistan.Flooding and chilly conditions will not be the only concerns as storms return to the area. Frequent lighting strikes will be dangerous for anyone caught outside during the unsettled period.Residents are reminded to head inside at the first rumble of thunder.Some of the wet weather may prove beneficial. Lengthy periods of rain could improve air quality across northern India where air pollution reaches dangerous levels during the drier season.Occasional showers and thunderstorms are forecast to continue into the weekend near the mountains of northern India and Nepal.Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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| Turkey issues new arrest warrant for jailed businessman Kavala Posted: 09 Mar 2020 02:01 PM PDT  A Turkish court issued a new arrest warrant on Monday against Turkish businessman and philanthropist Osman Kavala, who was re-arrested last month after being acquitted in a separate trial, one of his lawyers told Reuters. Kavala had been cleared of charges related to nationwide protests in 2013, but was re-arrested the following day, accused of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order in a failed coup in 2016. On Monday, a second arrest warrant was issued in relation to the coup attempt, this time for espionage.
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| Why Is Alleged Quack Dr. Oz the Face of NBC’s ‘Coronavirus Crisis Team’? Posted: 09 Mar 2020 01:41 AM PDT  For the past week—as the global COVID-19 death toll surpassed 3,800, including at least 22 fatalities in the United States—NBC News has been promoting celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz as the most visible member of the Today show's so-called "Coronavirus Crisis Team."The 59-year-old Oz, an Oprah Winfrey protégé who registered the trademark "America's Doctor" as his self-awarded title, has been urging Today viewers to vigorously scrub their thumbs and fingertips as part of a 20-second hand-washing ritual to combat the spread of the pandemic, and on Friday, exhorted people over the age of 60—those at highest risk of succumbing to the disease—to stick close to home."If I was younger I would go ahead and travel, but if I was older, I wouldn't—and would avoid crowded places," Oz told Today co-host Craig Melvin, suggesting that senior citizens keep at an "arm's length" distance from strangers. "Why take a chance?"That is prudent counsel, to be sure. (Never mind that it directly contradicted Oz's recommendation to 88-year-old William Shatner—on Monday's episode of Access Daily—that the "apprehensive" Star Trek actor proceed with his plans for an international lecture tour: "He can go anywhere he wants. Do not make decisions based on fear… We've gotta live our lives.")The telegenic Oz might well be a talented thoracic surgeon—best known as the host of the popular syndicated daytime program The Dr. Oz Show—but he is hardly an ideal dispenser of medical advice for an increasingly anxious American public."He's just a quack," said physician and scientific researcher Henry I. Miller, one of Oz's more vocal critics in the medical community, but by no means unique in his condemnation of, among other transgressions, Oz's enthusiastic endorsements of phony weight-loss remedies, his bogus claims of dangerous levels of arsenic in children's apple juice, and his willingness to provide a platform to the debunked assertion that genetically modified food causes cancer."He's been dishonest and he has been dispensing misinformation to millions now for years," said Miller, who in 2015 led an unsuccessful campaign to pressure Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons to fire Oz from its faculty. "I wouldn't trust any of his observations, and don't see how he would have responsible and valid views on coronavirus."NBC News declined to comment on Oz's critics or his role on the Today show, where he is one of several paid physician-contributors—but surely the most famous and camera-savvy—who've been enlisted in recent days as on-air experts to address viewers' coronavirus concerns.In a statement to The Daily Beast, Oz responded: "There are lots of detractors in life who have trouble hearing the truth or engaging in difficult debates about multi-sided topics. I have spent my career with the belief that knowledge is power and I have never shied away from that mantra. We are in the midst of one of the biggest epidemics in recent time and my focus is on educating and calming a fearful public. That's what we all should be focused on right now."Oz and the 72-year-old Dr. Miller—a former Food and Drug Administration official and ex-academic fellow at Stanford University's conservative-leaning Hoover Institution—are longtime adversaries. On an April 2015 installment of The Dr. Oz Show, Oz countered Miller's headline-grabbing open letter to Columbia University demanding his dismissal by slamming Miller as a paid shill for the tobacco, pesticide, and genetically modified food industries. (Indeed, Miller was dropped as a columnist by Forbes magazine in 2017 after The New York Times reported that one of his 2015 bylined columns largely echoed a draft prepared by employees of Monsanto.)In addition, Oz noted that one of the letter's 10 physician co-signers, Dr. Gilbert Ross, was a convicted felon who served prison time for Medicaid fraud.Still, most of Oz's critics are not so easily attacked.Three Mayo Clinic scientists—Dr. Jon C. Tilburt, M.D., and PhDs Megan Allyse and Frederic W. Hafferty—pulled no punches in their February 2017 article in the AMA Journal of Ethics about the troubling questions raised by Oz's public influence."Should a physician be allowed to say anything—however inaccurate and potentially harmful—so long as that individual commands market share?" they wrote. "In a professional sector whose history and growth is marked by the sustained and rightful denouncement of quacks and quackery… an inability to define and fence the epistemic boundaries of scientific medicine from apparent quackery on such a visible scale becomes something akin to a full-scale identity crisis for medicine…"Dr. Oz certainly appears to be someone peddling unproven and ineffective remedies for personal gain… Yet, he remains immensely popular, prompting us to wonder, if we can't effectively sanction Dr. Oz, whom can we sanction?"Meanwhile, a May 2018 article by Rina Raphael, Fast Company magazine's health and technology writer, decried Donald Trump's appointment of Oz to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition."The inclusion of Dr. Oz took many in the health industry by surprise, especially those who have been following the TV star's snake-oil antics over the last few years," Raphael wrote. "Oz has been repeatedly called out for his support of false, deceptive products and unproven medical practices, both from the medical community and consumer watchdog groups."His appointment clearly speaks in no way to his reputation as a trusted medical source, but rather to his celebrity status—and the ability to parlay that into multiple business opportunities. Perhaps that's what Trump, who has shown a preference for pundits over experts, finds appealing."More likely, Trump was simply rewarding Oz for letting the then-Republican presidential nominee and his daughter Ivanka onto the Sept. 15, 2016 installment of his syndicated show to tell whoppers, unchallenged, about his physical condition, especially the obvious sham that the obese candidate weighed only 236 pounds. Oz accepted at face value the conclusions of Trump's discredited doctor, Harold Bornstein, who declared that his patient "will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.""Talk about two snake-oil salesman!" then-Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said at the time about Trump's appearance on Dr. Oz."I mean one of them says, 'Take a pill and you'll be thin'… from your lips to God's ear wouldn't we all love that? Not true. Not medically true. Not scientifically true. And Dr. Oz knows it," said McCaskill, who famously dressed Oz down for pushing diet scams during a 2014 Senate hearing.Trump, meanwhile, is "promising things that are totally not true. Lying every time he opens his mouth," McCaskill added. "So I think it's really a marriage made in heaven."Oz's legion of critics also includes, but isn't limited to, New Yorker science writer Michael Specter, the British Medical Journal, and Popular Science magazine.As of this writing, however, it seems highly doubtful that NBC News and the Today show will spend even a second, much less 20, washing their hands of Dr. Oz.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. Learn more.
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| Hillary Clinton: Biden 'is building the kind of coalition that I had' Posted: 08 Mar 2020 10:11 AM PDT  Clinton told Zakaria she would support Sanders if he became the nominee, but she wasn't sure he would make that request.
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| Wuhan Official Called for ‘Gratitude Education’ to Teach Citizens to Thank Xi Jinping for Coronavirus Response Posted: 09 Mar 2020 12:09 PM PDT  The top Communist Party official in Wuhan suggested Saturday that the government conduct "gratitude education" to teach citizens how to properly thank the party and general secretary Xi Jinping for the government's response to the coronavirus outbreak."The people of Wuhan are heroic people who understand gratitude," Wuhan party secretary Wang Zhonglin said in comments published by Changjiang Daily. "[We] must through various channels carry out gratitude education among the citizens of the whole city as well as cadres so that they thank the general secretary [Xi Jinping], thank the communist party, listen to the party's words, follow the party's way, and create strong positive energy."The comments were first reported on in English by the China Media Project, and were subsequently seen by The Guardian. China Media Project reported that the remarks drew strong backlash on social media and from Chinese journalists, and Changjiang Daily apparently removed the article from its website.Chinese authorities have faced unprecedented criticism from the country's citizens over its response to the coronavirus outbreak. On Thursday, quarantined Wuhan residents angrily shouted from their windows as Vice-premier Sun Chunlan, one of the highest-ranking officials in the government, visited a residential complex."It's fake, it's fake, everything is fake!" residents shouted. Video of the incident went viral, and was even shared by China state newspaper The Global Times.> "It's fake! It's fake!" shout residents of a community in COVID19 epicenter Wuhan in a viral video on China's social media. They have accused property management of cheating them by only appearing to provide promised necessities. Investigation is underway https://t.co/kzq4gbB4RM pic.twitter.com/0ujObfedR8> > -- Global Times (@globaltimesnews) March 6, 2020Wuhan residents have been quarantined at home for weeks now, relying on local government workers to provide basic necessities.China has confirmed over 80,000 cases of the coronavirus and reported 3,119 deaths from the illness.
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| 'Every day is getting worse': Coronavirus patient sends stark warning to others about disease Posted: 09 Mar 2020 11:28 AM PDT  The first confirmed coronavirus patient in New Jersey has spoken out about his experience of contracting the virus.James Cai, a 32-year-old physician's assistant, who was the first patient to test positive for the virus in the state, spoke to CBS2's Hazel Sanchez about how rapidly he had fallen ill after contracting Covid-19.
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| Coronavirus live updates: US death toll hits 21; Grand Princess to dock Monday; Sen. Ted Cruz to self-quarantine Posted: 08 Mar 2020 08:59 PM PDT  The U.S. death toll climbed to 19 this weekend, but there was some good news for passengers and crew of a cruise ship hit by the new coronavirus.
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| GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz self-quarantines for coronavirus exposure just 1 hour after flying with Trump Posted: 09 Mar 2020 02:13 PM PDT  More GOP lawmakers are self-quarantining after they were informed they interacted with an attendee at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference who later tested positive for the novel coronavirus.Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Doug Collins (R-Ga.) will undertake precautionary recommendations from their doctors to isolate themselves until the 14-day incubation period for the virus expires in a few days. Neither congressman is experiencing symptoms. They were both, however, in close contact with President Trump recently, and Gaetz wasn't informed about his interaction with the CPAC attendee until he was midway through a flight on Air Force One.> I'm told Gaetz's office wasn't informed until MID-FLIGHT that he had interacted with the infected CPAC attendee... but Gaetz was tested for coronavirus immediately after he landed, per sources. https://t.co/C06wYA4C8L> > — Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) March 9, 2020Gaetz was seen in congressional chambers last week facetiously wearing a gas mask while the House voted on a COVID-19 spending package.Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) are also self-quarantining this week for the same reason as Collins and Gaetz, while Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said he was exposed, as well, but was told he was not at any risk and does not plan on self-quarantining.More stories from theweek.com Washington nursing home with coronavirus outbreak reported shocking escalation from 'no symptoms to death' Trump retweets White House photo of him fiddling, says he doesn't know 'what this means' Italy's prime minister puts whole country on coronavirus lockdown
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| From silencing medics to banning 'rumors': Here's why Iran is struggling to contain its coronavirus outbreak Posted: 09 Mar 2020 08:13 AM PDT  Iran's government is accused of downplaying the outbreak's severity and withholding key information. Many top politicians have also caught the virus.
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| A Look at the Complete Works of Antoni Gaudí Posted: 09 Mar 2020 02:02 PM PDT |
| South Korea sees coronavirus 'stable phase' but 'too early to be optimistic' Posted: 08 Mar 2020 06:33 PM PDT  South Korean President Moon Jae-in expressed guarded hope for the country's fight against the coronavirus on Monday, saying a downward trend in new infections could lead to a phase of stability, but he warned that it was too early to be optimistic. The numbers showed the rate of increase in new infections fell to its lowest level in 11 days in one of the most severely affected countries outside mainland China. Moon said South Korea can enter the "phase of stability" soon if it continues to reduce the number of new cases.
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| Pentagon awards contracts to design mobile nuclear reactor Posted: 09 Mar 2020 10:42 AM PDT  The Department of Defense has two parallel nuclear reactor programs underway, one for domestic use, one for use abroad.
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| Fox Hosts Varney and Bartiromo Look to Joe Biden to Calm the Stock Market Posted: 09 Mar 2020 10:29 AM PDT  With the stock market experiencing record-setting drops on Monday morning that prompted trading to briefly halt, pro-Trump Fox Business Network hosts Stuart Varney and Maria Bartiromo turned their eyes to... uh... Joe Biden to boost the stocks.During Monday morning's broadcast of Fox Business Network's Varney & Co., the eponymous host wondered aloud whether the markets—plunging due to fear and uncertainty surrounding a coronavirus outbreak—could "see a bounce" in the next couple of days due to a likely Biden victory this week."I mean, Michigan primary, maybe I'm grasping at straws here," the Fox host added.Bartiromo, meanwhile, said she agreed with her colleague before finding a silver lining in the market volatility, noting that the historically low 10-year Treasury yield meant it was "time to take out a mortgage" and plummeting stock prices represented an "enormous buying opportunity." (Trump took to Twitter on Monday to boast that gas prices plummeting were "good for the consumer.")SNL Roasts Trump's Coronavirus Response: 'We're All Gonna Die'Varney, for his part, wanted to pivot the discussion back to politics and how the markets will react to democratic-socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) possibly losing handily in Tuesday's primaries to the former vice president."I think Bernie's gonna lose," Varney asserted. "I think Joe Biden, he's got the momentum and I think the market will like that. The very hint, if Bernie does well, I think the market has another problem on its hands.""Absolutely," Bartiromo responded. "You wanna see this market taken out even more than today, have a victory for Bernie Sanders. That will really kill any expectation of a comeback here."As the markets have reacted negatively over the past couple of weeks to the impact a likely coronavirus pandemic will have on the global economy, a number of Fox hosts have insisted that the possibility of Sanders becoming the Democratic presidential nominee has also spooked traders.Last month, when the market began its massive sell-off, Fox Business host Charles Payne blamed much of the losses on "the Bernie factor," claiming there was "absolutely no doubt" that Wall Street had taken Sanders' then-rise in the race "very seriously."Varney himself has recently said that a Sanders win would result in both the stock market and economy crashing. "I think I'm totally right," he told Fox & Friends earlier this month, adding that his prediction was "guaranteed." White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham Promises 'Healthy' Trump Will Be 'Just Fine'Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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. Learn more.
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| Oil price war, Mecca ban are latest risks by Saudi prince Posted: 09 Mar 2020 05:26 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is behind the kingdom's boldest and riskiest moves in decades, most recently shutting down Islam's holiest sites to pilgrims to stymie the spread of a new virus and the government's decision to slash oil prices in what analysts say has sparked a price war with major producer Russia. As his father's favored son, the 34-year-old prince oversees nearly every major aspect of the country's defense, economy, internal security, social reforms and foreign policy. The prince's headline-grabbing path to power has been paved with controversy, conflict and combat.
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| Report: Iran commander killed in Syria Posted: 09 Mar 2020 07:39 AM PDT  An official with Iran's Revolutionary Guard who took part in battles around war-torn Syria was killed near the Syrian capital, an Iranian semiofficial news agency and an opposition war monitor reported Saturday.
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| Trump feuds with airlines over coronavirus after White House asks for passenger information Posted: 09 Mar 2020 08:16 AM PDT  Requests by the Trump administration to the airline industry to collect more passenger information to help stem the spread of coronavirus have resulted in heightened tensions between the industry and the White House.The administration - at the urging of the Centers of Disease Control - has asked airlines to begin collecting data on travellers to help the government slow the spread of coronavirus. Airline industry officials claim they don't have the technology available to meet the government's requests, but the CDC is sceptical.
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| Reps. Matt Gaetz, Doug Collins Self-Quarantine over Coronavirus Fears After Meetings with President Trump Posted: 09 Mar 2020 12:54 PM PDT  Representatives Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) and Doug Collins (R., Ga.) announced on Monday they were moving to self-quarantine after being informed they had met with a Conservative Political Action Conference attendee who has since been diagnosed with Wuhan coronavirus.Both congressmen have directly interacted with President Trump in the following days. Gaetz made his announcment an hour after leaving a meeting with Trump on Air Force One."While the Congressman is not experiencing symptoms, he received testing today and expects results soon," Gaetz's staff posted on Twitter. "Under doctor's usual precautionary recommendations, he'll remain self-quarantined until the 14-day period expires this week""This afternoon, I was notified by CPAC that they discovered a photo of myself and the patient who has tested positive for COVID-19," Collins said in a statement. "While I am not experiencing any symptoms, I have decided to self-quarantine at my home for the remainder of the 14-day period out of an abundance of caution."On Friday, after attending CPAC, Collins visited the headquarters of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he met with President Trump, health secretary Alex Azar and other officials.On Sunday Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Representative Paul Gosar (R., Ariz.) both announced they had met the patient and were placing themselves in self-quarantine."Given that the interaction was 10 days ago, that the average incubation period is 5-6 days, that the interaction was for less than a minute, and that I have no current symptoms, the medical authorities have advised me that the odds of transmission from the other individual to me were extremely low," Cruz said in a statement.Gosar, who interacted with the patient along with three members of his staff, said "We are all asymptomatic and feel great. But we are being proactive and cautious. Keep the person in the hospital in your prayers."There are currently 589 confirmed cases of Wuhan coronavirus in the U.S., with 22 deaths so far.
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| The Muslim running for mayor in Christian Bavaria Posted: 07 Mar 2020 09:28 PM PST  With his neatly trimmed beard, sharp suit and broad smile, Ozan Iyibas looks like a typical politician out to win votes ahead of a municipal election in southern Germany's Bavaria region. "I don't see any contradiction in this choice," says the 37-year-old, sitting back in an armchair and clutching a mug of tea in the town of Neufahrn. While Iyibas won the local CSU's nomination unanimously, such support is not always a given in the region where party chief Markus Soeder in 2018 ordered crosses to be displayed at the entrances of all public buildings, as a way of honouring the region's "cultural heritage".
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| The World Health Organization says the threat of a coronavirus pandemic 'has become very real' as global cases surpass 110,000 Posted: 09 Mar 2020 10:36 AM PDT  "It would be the first pandemic in history that could be controlled," the WHO's director-general said. "We are not at the mercy of the virus."
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| Transgender queen crowned in Thailand as coronavirus limits crowd Posted: 07 Mar 2020 06:12 PM PST  After temperature checks for contestants and with a smaller crowd than last year because of coronavirus fears, Mexico's Valentina Fluchaire was crowned in Thailand as winner of what is billed as the world's biggest transgender pageant on Saturday. Although Miss International Queen 2020 went ahead, unlike many events cancelled around the world since the coronavirus outbreak emerged in China, the crowd was markedly smaller than in previous years, with many empty seats. The contestants all had their temperatures taken with hand scanners before being allowed to go on stage in national costumes, swimsuits and glamorous evening gowns.
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| US regulators will force Boeing to rewire 737 MAX jets: report Posted: 08 Mar 2020 10:55 PM PDT  US aviation regulators plan to require Boeing to rewire all 737 MAX aircraft before allowing the troubled planes fly again, the Wall Street Journal has reported. The MAX has been grounded worldwide since an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed shortly after take-off last March, less than six months after the same model was involved in a similar fatal accident in Indonesia. Regulators have since concluded that the current wiring layout violated safety standards to prevent short-circuits that could cause similar sharp drops in aircraft pitch, the newspaper said Sunday.
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| U.S. Coronavirus Cases Top 400, Putting Thousands in Quarantine Posted: 09 Mar 2020 10:48 AM PDT  The long reach of the new coronavirus in the U.S. could be seen Monday in the growing number of people moving into quarantine—from parishioners who shook hands with a priest, to thousands on a cruise ship, to senior aides of a top New York official.With each new case that is diagnosed—and there are now more than 400, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—authorities are recommending everyone who came in close contact with that person while they were infectious isolate themselves to stop the spread of COVID-19.Despite those precautions, the CDC said Monday that the march of the virus across the country is inevitable—and the outbreak that has already infiltrated 34 states and Washington, D.C., won't end this year."As the trajectory of the outbreak continues, many people in the U.S. at some time either this year or next will be exposed to this virus, and there's a good chance many will become sick," Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a teleconference.Italy's Draconian Lockdown Shows Why Mass Quarantines Won't Work in the WestThe numbers bear that out. As of Monday morning, the CDC had identified 164 cases in the U.S. Shortly after noon, the tally was updated to 423, with 19 deaths. Later in the day, Washington state announced the deaths of three more senior citizens from the Life Care Center nursing home in Kirkland, where dozens of staff members are home sick. California also announced the death of a woman in her 60s.Washington state and California previously had most of the cases, but New York's number was up to 142 by Monday, a 35 percent single-day jump and now the second most in the nation—underscoring just how quickly the virus can spread in densely populated areas.The newly diagnosed New Yorkers include Rick Cotton, the director of the Port Authority, the bi-state agency that controls the airports and other travel hubs. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Cotton and some members of his senior team will now be under quarantine. (Cuomo also said the state has created its own brand of hand sanitizer; prison inmates will be making 100,000 gallons per week of the floral-scented product, and it will be provided to schools and public agencies as a hedge against price-gouging.)In Washington, D.C., anyone who attended Christ Church Georgetown on Feb. 24 or between Feb. 28 and March 3—hundreds of people—has been asked to self-quarantine because a rector there was diagnosed with the coronavirus. Also in the nation's capital, several members of Congress announced they were self-quarantining because they came in contact with someone who tested positive while they attended the CPAC confab, although Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) tweeted that he also had contact but was not self-isolating because an unnamed CDC doctor told him it was unnecessary.Passengers on board the Grand Princess cruise ship, which was held off the coast of California but finally allowed to dock in Oakland on Monday, won't have a choice. Anyone sick will be sent to urgent care and all other Americans on board will be sent to military bases for 14 days of quarantine.The quarantines are meant to slow the spread of COVID-19, giving the government and the health-care industry more time to cope. But not everyone is taking them seriously.A woman's positive test in Missouri led to an entire school being shuttered after her father and daughter broke voluntary quarantine recommendations and went to a daddy-daughter dance. Officials said they will consider taking legal action if they do it again.New York Prison Labor Makes Hand Sanitizer, Prepares to Dig Graves if Coronvirus WorsensOther schools are taking measures to avoid spreading the virus or just to calm jangled nerves. Columbia University canceled classes for two days because a single person on campus had been exposed; Princeton University said all lectures and seminars will be held via teleconference to reduce crowds; Rice University scrapped all in-person classes for a week, despite no report of exposure.Globally, more than 110,000 people have been infected with the bug, which originated in Wuhan, China, and the fallout continues to be dramatic.In Italy, riots broke out in dozens of jails and prisons after visitation rights were curtailed for health reasons. Six inmates were killed and others escaped, guards were taken hostage, and fires were set. Hours later, the country announced a nationwide lockdown, meaning the movements of 60 million people will be restricted.Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is barring flights from more countries, adding Germany, France, and Oman to Italy, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Olympic organizers announced that Thursday's torch-lighting ceremony will be held without spectators for the first time in decades. 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. Learn more.
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| Virginia reshaped as Democrats put historic stamp on laws Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:32 PM PDT  Democratic legislators in Virginia have dramatically reshaped the state in two months, sweeping aside many of the state's old business-friendly and socially conservative laws and replacing them with a broad, progressive policy agenda. Democrats had not had full control of the legislature for more than two decades, and their years of pent-up frustrations yielded one of the most consequential sessions in Virginia's history.
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| Destroyers left behind: US Navy cancels plans to extend service lives of its workhorse DDGs Posted: 09 Mar 2020 07:16 AM PDT  The Navy is killing a plan to add 10 years to the hull life of its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
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| A GOP congressman's tweet about quarantining himself from the 'Wuhan coronavirus' sparks debate about racism surrounding the disease Posted: 09 Mar 2020 01:57 PM PDT  After Rep. Paul Gosar announced his self-quarantine from the "Wuhan coronavirus," people were torn about whether the term is inherently racist.
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| 'We'll disappear': Thousands of Mexican women strike to protest femicide Posted: 09 Mar 2020 11:58 AM PDT  Day Without Women protesters aim to shine a light on government inaction as more than ten women are murdered every dayAs rush-hour began on Monday morning, there were no ticket-sellers in Mexico City subway stations.Nor were there female tellers at many of the banks. Nail salons, massage parlors, and hairdressers closed. And in cities across the country, far fewer women were on the streets than on an ordinary day.Countless thousands of women and girls across Mexico have joined a historic strike to protest against the country's startling rates of gender-based violence – and the government's failure to respond to the crisis in which more than ten women are murdered every day..From factories along the Río Grande to businesses in the capital and offices in cities near the Guatemalan border, women and girls joined the unprecedented protest, billed as a Day Without Women.The strike sent a clear message to Mexican society, said Sandra Reyes, 33, a biologist at the National Cancer Institute, who was one of at least 80,000 people who joined the country's largest ever women's march on Sunday."In some ways, it's a taunt: if you do not want us out here in the streets, we'll disappear," she said.Many marchers on Sunday expressed frustration with the country's federal and state authorities: most murder cases go unsolved, and families often search for the missing on their own.Elsa Arísta González, who founded a Facebook group to report disappearances and abuse in the city of Nezahualcóyotl, in Mexico state, said that people were fed up with the impunity."We used to be able to walk home from school alone, and leave open the door to your house. Not anymore," said Arista González, 40, a law student and coffee shop employee. "We've become used to living in fear."But many protesters have reserved particular fury for the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office in December 2018 on a promise of sweeping change, but has shown little interest in the issue of violence against women.The president, popularly known as Amlo, has attributed femicides to the "neoliberal policies" of previous governments and repeatedly suggested that the women's protests are part of a rightwing plot against him.On Monday, he repeated the allegation, saying that women were free to protest, but claiming that some "wanted our administration to fail"."For a whole year, this government has responded with promises to the people's demands. But the situation for women has not improved. Women are facing the same kinds of violence as before and the country has become even more militarized. Nothing has changed," said Alejandra Santamaría, 28, a law professor.Though some women continued to work in shops, cafes, and restaurants – often for fear of being docked pay – far fewer women than usual were riding the subway to work."The strike has given us the chance to challenge our labor conditions. The question is whether we'll be able to keep up the social pressure," said Nélida Reyes Guzmán, 56, a striking metro worker.Many businesses supported the strike and told their female employees to stay at home, and some women worried that the backing of mainstream politicians and major business had diluted some of its ideological force.But others argued that the such support merely showed the strength of the women's cause."Without us, all of this collapses," said Paula León García, 33, the director of one of the closed branches of BBVA Bancomer, Mexico's largest bank.Women's strikes have been held previously in Argentina and Chile, as well as Poland and Spain. But Amneris Chaparro, a researcher at the gender studies center at the National Autonomous University, said Mexico had never before had a major women's strike – despite its long tradition of labor and student activism.But the spiraling death toll of women and girls targeted for their gender – and a horrific recent string of high-profile crimes – has inspired new passion in the country's women's movement."Every day we have more evidence that they are killing us specifically for being women," said Maria de la Luz Estrada, the executive coordinator of the National Citizen Observatory on Femicide."If this government wants a transformation of this county, they have to face the problem."
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| Chinese Propagandists Stoke Theory That Coronavirus Originated in U.S. Posted: 09 Mar 2020 12:17 PM PDT  Chinese state media are amplifying a conspiracy that the Wuhan coronavirus may have originated in the U.S.The media push may have begun in earnest on February 27 when Zhong Nanshan, a pulmonologist who has made major announcements on Chinese state media, said at a press conference: "The coronavirus first appeared in China but may not have originated in China." Other media outlets have repeated or implied the same message."If it's true that the virus originated in the United States, should China still apologize to the world?" read an article in College Daily, a WeChat account based in New York City popular with Chinese students studying abroad. On Saturday, China's ambassador to South Africa wrote on his Twitter account, "Although the epidemic first broke out in China, it did not necessarily mean that the virus is originated from China, let alone 'made in China.'""Go on WeChat, go on Weibo, look on Baidu search, and it's full of 'look at all the other countries getting sick,' or 'the virus came from the United States,' or all different levels of conspiracy theories," Xiao Qiang, founder of the China Digital Times and adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Information, told the Washington Post."It's more than just some disinformation or an official narrative," Xiao said. "It's an orchestrated, all-out campaign by the Chinese government through every channel at a level you rarely see. It's a counteroffensive."Dali Yang, professor of political science at Chicago University, said the media campaign was an attempt to draw citizens' attention away from China's response to the outbreak."The purpose is to lessen the focus on how China bungled its response," Yang said. "It's a kind of blame-shifting."
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| China reports no new locally transmitted coronavirus cases outside epicenter Posted: 08 Mar 2020 05:22 PM PDT  BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Mainland China reported no new locally transmitted coronavirus cases outside the epicenter of Hubei province for the second day running on Monday, but a top Communist Party official warned against people dropping their guard. China had 40 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections as of Sunday, the National Health Commission said, down from 44 cases a day earlier, and the lowest number since the health authority started publishing nationwide data on Jan. 20. Of the new cases, 36 were in Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei, and four in Gansu province in people arriving from Iran.
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| Hands off: 'No touch' virus policy for Philippines president Posted: 09 Mar 2020 04:31 AM PDT  Well-wishers will not be allowed to touch Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte under new measures announced Monday by his security detail, as the deadly coronavirus spreads in the country. At 74, Duterte is in a vulnerable age group for the virus, which has proven particularly harmful in older people with pre-existing conditions. "The PSG (Presidential Security Group) will implement a no-touch policy between the president and the public," group commander Jesus Durante said in a statement.
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| The Army general in charge of US soldiers in Europe may have been exposed to the coronavirus Posted: 09 Mar 2020 03:36 PM PDT  An Army general and his staff are self-monitoring for coronavirus after they may have been exposed during a conference, the Army said Monday.
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| What happens to delegates after a candidate drops out?: Yahoo News Explains Posted: 08 Mar 2020 08:00 AM PDT  Following Super Tuesday, two front runners have emerged in the Democratic presidential primary — Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Now, Sanders and Biden must compete for the 1,991 delegates needed to secure the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in July. However, more than 100 delegates have already been pledged to candidates who have dropped out of the race. So, what happens to them? Yahoo News Senior Editor Will Rahn explains.
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| 'I'm frightened there's not a sense of urgency': Most Americans don't approve of Trump's handling of coronavirus Posted: 09 Mar 2020 01:50 PM PDT  A slight majority of Americans disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the coronavirus outbreak, and just under 40 per cent say his response would make them less likely to vote for his re-election.The survey, conducted last week by Public Policy Polling, found 51 per cent of Americans disapprove of the president's response to the virus, with 42 per cent saying they approve.
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| Princess says passenger brought coronavirus on ship; cruise companies to change boarding protocols Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:28 AM PDT  Princess Cruises said Saturday that a California man who died on Wednesday was likely infected with the coronavirus before he boarded a ship.
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| Remains of 'Baby Evelyn' Boswell are believed to have been found at relative's home Posted: 08 Mar 2020 12:04 PM PDT  The remains were found at a property owned by her mom's relative.
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| We shouldn't have to pay for Jack Dorsey's $40m estate when it crumbles into the sea Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:11 AM PDT  By using public money to protect California homes from climate change, the state is transferring wealth from working-class people of color to white property owners Even by the standards of overpriced San Francisco, the Sea Cliff neighborhood is astronomically expensive. Nestled between two gorgeous parks and with what a realtor might describe as commanding views of the Golden Gate, it could hardly be different. Homes in the area routinely go for more than $10m. Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and the payment service Square, recently bought a place here for $21.5m – next door to his $18m present home. The 0.62 acre compound is recessed from the street and perched on a cliff overlooking the beach.And that's where things get interesting, because cliffside living has become an increasingly risky proposition in California. Warming ocean temperatures are whipping up stronger surfs and more brutal winter storms, causing cliffs to crumble ever faster into the sea. The consequences for thousands of cliff-top houses such as Dorsey's could be catastrophic. Still, @Jack's bet isn't a bad one: depending on when the house goes over the edge, it might well be the rest of us that gets stuck with the bill.That's because most of the cost of protecting California properties from coastal erosion, wildfires and other effects of the climate crisis will be met by the state, with public money. This means those costs won't fall on the disproportionately white and wealthy people who own property. Rather, they'll be increasingly borne by the working- and middle-class Hispanic, black and brown Californians that make up the majority of the state, many of whom don't own real estate. Without really grappling with this reality, the state is slipping step by step towards a massive wealth transfer from the general public to the owners of private property. It's one more way in which the climate crisis is also a crisis of racism and inequality.What Sea Cliff could look like in a few years' time can be glimpsed in the town of Pacifica, 14 miles to the south. Parts of the town, which is much more middle-class than Sea Cliff, sit directly on beautiful bluffs that overlook – and are tumbling into – the Pacific Ocean. When the town's mayor proposed a "managed retreat" from the coast, home owners and local realtors revolted: the proposal would have effectively taken their homes off the market, cutting them off from potential profits. (Owners does not mean residents: about a third of Pacifica's housing stock, including many of the most threatened buildings, consists of rental units.) So instead of a managed retreat, the city is taking money from the public coffers and using it to protect property investments by building sea walls and replenishing eroding beaches with trucked-in sand, among other measures.This is a dynamic we've seen throughout the late capitalist economy. The sociologist Ulrich Beck described it as a change from "a logic of wealth distribution" to one of "risk distribution". Profits are privatized, but risk is made public. The banks made a bunch of bad bets on crappy mortgage debts? Bail them out with public money and give the executives multimillion-dollar bonuses. Someone half bakes a fundamentally unprofitable tech business? Let them IPO it so they can liquidate hundreds of millions of dollars of stock options while transferring the ultimately worthless company into the hands of public pension funds and workers' 401ks.That's the same thing that is now happening in California, where the land is uniquely threatened and at the same time uniquely valuable. There is a concerted political effort not to manage the risk, but rather to keep it from impacting value by making the public bear the costs of the climate crisis through things such as the sorts of publicly funded disaster relief programs and state-subsidized insurance payouts that Jack Dorsey could theoretically benefit from. This is, in fact, what many of the owners of capital and real estate think the government is for: protecting the value of private property at all costs. It's one of the reasons we have a climate crisis – instead of a robust, rapid transition away from fossil fuels – in the first place.The sheer immensity of the climate crisis, and of California, ensures that more and more of the costs will be borne by the public. The LA Times estimates that $150bn in California property might be impacted by coastal flooding and erosion by 2100. That's $150bn in private wealth which the government has made it a public priority to preserve. But those costs are dwarfed by the risks created by the region's intensifying wildfires, which threaten millions of properties around the state. The financial response to wildfires so far shows how these risks will inevitably be collectivized.It will go something like this: as houses become astronomically expensive, insurance payouts become astronomically large. In response, in threatened areas, private insurers will cancel coverage, or multiply rates to the point of unaffordability. The state will be forced to step in to stabilize the rates, and keep the land valuable, which will likely involve something like the National Flood Insurance Program, which subsidizes flood insurance provided by private insurers and underwrites the full extent of their losses.The racist dimension to this wealth transfer must not be overlooked. Fewer than 55% of California households own their dwelling and only 42% of Latino households and 33% of black ones do. Non-urban space, open space, and at-risk space in California is today particularly white, or at least white-owned.Especially in the sorts of rural areas threatened by wildfire, that disparity is highly dependent on California's history of racial violence and exclusion. The genocide of California's first peoples; restrictions on the citizenship status of Asian immigrants; the seizure of Japanese American land during the second world war; the arrogation of land for infrastructure projects in the postwar period; discriminatory lending practices, racial covenants and other racist real estate policies, perpetuated by de facto segregation – all worked to ensure that non-white property ownership in rural California has remained low and concentrated in dense cities.All of this creates an unjust mismatch: the collective that is underwriting the risk of climate catastrophe is not the same as the group that is incurring it. As a result, the siphoning off of public wealth to protect private property favors white Californians.Of course, that's one of the reasons it's been politically acceptable. It would be difficult to imagine the government sanctioning a massive wealth transfer in the other direction, for example by relieving the mortgage debts of the black and brown Americans who were the primary victims of the subprime crisis. But when fire and other types of home insurance markets fail, as they are already beginning to do and inevitably will, the state will have to step in to shore up the largely white property market with black, brown, working and middle-class public money.As the incalculably large price tag of climate change comes due, those excluded from the property market will increasingly foot the bill for California's cult of the homeowner. It remains to be seen whether that cult will endure, or whether the state can rethink its relationship to real estate.
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| Stocks savaged, Italy on lockdown, Trump seeks to reassure as coronavirus spreads Posted: 09 Mar 2020 04:37 AM PDT  All of Italy under lockdown, reeling financial markets and rioting prisoners made clear on Monday how the global coronavirus epidemic was extending its reach into all aspects of social and economic life. Major European stock markets dived more than 7%, Japanese indexes fell over 5% and U.S. markets sank over 7% after Saudi Arabia launched an oil price war with Russia that sent investors already spooked by the coronavirus epidemic running for the exits. In Italy, scene of Europe's worst outbreak with infections and deaths still soaring, the government took its most drastic steps yet to contain the outbreak, affecting some 60 million people.
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| Russia steps in to support tumbling ruble Posted: 09 Mar 2020 03:50 AM PDT  The Russian ruble tumbled Monday to a four-year low amid a crash in oil prices as authorities rushed to assure the public the country has accumulated enough funds to withstand the blow. Shares in Russian companies including oil giant Rosneft and Sberbank lender also plunged in London -- the Moscow Stock Exchange was closed for a public holiday Monday. The Russian Central Bank and the finance ministry on Monday quickly announced measures aimed at stabilising the ruble to ensure financial stability.
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| The Navy may not buy any more Ford-class supercarriers, acting Navy secretary says Posted: 09 Mar 2020 10:26 AM PDT  "I don't know if we're going to buy any more of that type," he said, adding that the Navy is "certainly thinking about possible other classes."
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| Joe Biden Owes Clarence Thomas an Apology Posted: 09 Mar 2020 03:30 AM PDT  On the day Chuck Schumer was threatening Supreme Court justices in front of pack of a cheering partisans, Representative Ayanna Pressley told the same crowd, "We have two alleged sexual predators on the bench of the highest court of the land, with the power to determine our reproductive freedoms. I still believe Anita Hill. And I still believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford!"Now, it is far more accurate to call Hill a "disgraced accuser" than Clarence Thomas an "alleged sexual predator." Not a single person — and Thomas had scores of subordinates working for him during his years in government — ever corroborated Hill's description of Thomas's actions. Nor has single person ever accused Thomas of any similar behavior in his 30-plus years as a justice. Twelve former female colleagues of both Thomas and Hill signed an affidavit supporting Thomas, while not a single person who worked with both vouched for Hill.Unlike Blasey Ford, whose nebulous and unverifiable accusations were decades old, Hill's allegations were a potential criminal matter. So the FBI investigated Hill's claims — though they found her reluctant to cooperate — and failed to uncover any evidence to substantiate the accusations. After the hearings, agents sent affidavits to the Senate accusing Hill of misleading them and the public, skipping portions of her story, and offering testimony that contradicted what she had told law-enforcement officials. This part of the story rarely gets mentioned when the media recount her supposed heroics.And though it isn't particularly important in proving or disproving the veracity of her statements, most people didn't believe Anita Hill at the time, either:> At every point in the final polls, a plurality or majority of black Americans supported the nomination. In the final Gallup/CNN poll (conducted on October 14, 1991), 69 percent said they would like to see the Senate vote in favor of confirming him. Differences by gender were modest throughout, on the confirmation vote. In the final CNN/Gallup poll, 57 percent of women said the Senate should vote in favor, 31 percent said it should not, and 12 percent were unsure.Accusing Thomas and Kavanaugh of being "alleged sexual predators" -- which, incidentally, suggests something even worse than Hill's accusation -- is a politically motivated slander. It is meant to undercut the authority of the court and to intimidate justices (and future nominees) who take the "wrong" side on the issue of life. For contemporary Democrats, the court exists primarily to safeguard the only constitutional "right" that really matters to them anymore: abortion.In that regard, it's curious to see presidential hopeful Joe Biden, who has spent 40 years shifting his abortion position to appease the base of his party, being dragged by progressives for failing to give Hill the unrestrained ability to destroy Thomas back in 1991. After all, it was Biden who helped turn Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into nasty, hyper-politicized smear-fests that set the precedent for the Kavanaugh hearing.In 1986, the year before Biden was lifted to chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Antonin Scalia had been approved 98–0 by the Senate. There weren't really any Supreme Court confirmation battles before then. A year later, in 1987, Robert Bork -- who, Warren Burger, the former chief justice, claimed was the most qualified jurist he'd seen in 50 years -- would be grossly caricatured by real-life sexual harasser Ted Kennedy, who warned that "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids." Thomas would be accused of being a puppet of his white colleagues, among other racist stereotypes, merely for his ideological outlook. In those days, hyperbolic statements from Senators were somewhat rare. Now they are a modus operandi.To be fair to Biden, he was an exceptionally incompetent and indecisive chairman, easily cowed and unable to control the hearings. After promising to support Bork, he switched his vote. After promising to afford Thomas some semblance of due process, he presided over what the future justice famously called a "high-tech lynching."Biden now claims to regret that he "couldn't come up with a way" to give Hill "the kind of hearing she deserved." What does Biden think Hill deserved? Without any supporting evidence, the Senate gave her the opportunity to make her case. She was given enormous coverage by the media when her allegations emerged -- leaked to the press, most likely by Democrats -- despite the obvious problems with her story from the start. No one ever stopped Hill from telling that story. Hill still tells her story. Hill wrote a book telling her story. There are hagiographic movies and documentaries about her story. Even today, journalists interview her without a hint of journalistic skepticism.Sensing that the issue might be problematic, Biden called Hill last year to apologize. Hill, a professor, wasn't impressed, saying, "I will be satisfied when I know that there is real change and real accountability and real purpose." Or, in other words, the patriarchy must unilaterally surrender to the poetic truth, rather than to the evidence -- or, in Hill's case, to a lack of it.If Biden should apologize to anyone, it's Clarence Thomas. Or maybe the American people, for allowing judicial confirmation hearings to be turned into partisan-fueled character assassinations, weaponized to destroy the legitimacy of the Supreme Court -- all in the service of nothing more noble than the killing of the unborn.
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| Recent developments surrounding the South China Sea Posted: 08 Mar 2020 09:53 PM PDT  Researchers say China's maritime militia has constantly lingered around Thitu Island, the largest of the Spratly Islands occupied by the Philippines, for over 450 days, but that Manila is proceeding with improvements to the island's infrastructure.
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