| Senators blast Trump administration for coronavirus response Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:15 PM PST  Top officials in the Trump administration struggled on Tuesday morning to justify their response to the growing threat of the coronavirus, which has sickened at least 80,423 people around the world and killed at least 2,712.
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| Louisiana governor: Judge should resign after racial slurs Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:38 AM PST |
| Bloomberg once said Social Security is a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff's Posted: 26 Feb 2020 01:22 PM PST  Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg twice compared Social Security to a Ponzi scheme when he was in office, CNN reports, which is a far cry from his current stance as a Democratic presidential candidate.Nowadays, Bloomberg has vowed to to strengthen entitlement programs, but he used to see them as a major hurdle in the effort to shrink the United States' deficit. During appearances on his old radio program "Live from City Hall," which were reviewed by CNN's KFile, Bloomberg made the Ponzi scheme comparison once in 2006 and again in 2009. The latter instance was in relation to Bernie Madoff, who was arrested in December 2008 and later pleaded guilty to a massive Ponzi scheme."I don't know if Bernie Madoff got his idea from there, but if there's ever a Ponzi Scheme, people say Madoff was the biggest? Wrong," Bloomberg said. "Social Security is, far and away."Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Bloomberg, attempted to explain Bloomberg's comments to CNN. "The Social Security Administration itself gives out detailed actuarial tables on when and how payments will exceed income, and the issue needs attention because we're running the cushion between them down," he said. "Mike believes that between now and that time, we will need to boost receipts by raising contributions from those who can best afford it, which is what he'll do as president." Read more at CNN.More stories from theweek.com Trump puts Pence in charge of coronavirus response Israel is the first country to warn its citizens not to travel abroad over coronavirus fears Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity
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| Supreme Court tosses D.C. sniper case after change in Virginia law Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:21 PM PST  The Supreme Court heard arguments in Lee Boyd Malvo's case in October.
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| Iran to Sentence Citizens Who “Spreads Rumors” about Coronavirus to Flogging, Three Years in Prison Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:37 PM PST  An Iranian parliament spokesman on Wednesday announced that anyone found to be "spreading rumors" about the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak will be sentenced to one-to-three years in prison and flogging, Iran state news agency IRNA reported."Spreading fake news over coronavirus outbreak will people panic. It also will pave the ground for the country's shutdown," said Hassan Norouzi, spokesman for the parliament's legal and judicial committee, in comments translated by the Tehran Times.Norouzi said the prison sentence and flogging is based on "on the Islamic penal code," and 24 people have been arrested already on suspicion of "spreading rumors" about the illness.Iran has reported 139 cases of coronavirus infections throughout the country, with an epicenter in the city of Qom, a destination for Shi'ite Muslim religious pilgrims. Nineteen Iranians have died from the illness so far, and the country has the highest number of cases in the Middle East. While officials have recommended that citizens not visit Qom, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced on Wednesday that the government does not plan to quarantine entire cities, only infected individuals."Coronavirus must not be turned into a weapon for our enemies to halt work and production in our country," Rouhani said.On Tuesday Iranian deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi announced that he had contracted coronavirus. In a video taken at his home, Harirchi attempted to reassure viewers, saying "I will certainly defeat corona."Harirchi was filmed a day earlier on state television to announce that the country's outbreak was under control, visibly sweating and wiping his face with a handkerchief.
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| ABC News suspends veteran correspondent over comments captured in undercover Project Veritas video Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:07 PM PST  ABC News said it suspended veteran correspondent David Wright because his comments hurt the network's "reputation for fairness and impartiality."
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| Boom: The Army Just Invented a Newer, Deadlier Artillery Round Posted: 25 Feb 2020 08:50 AM PST  That's going to ruin somebody's day.
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| China to Russia: End discriminatory coronavirus measures against Chinese Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:57 AM PST  China's embassy in Russia has demanded authorities in Moscow end what it said are discriminatory anti-coronavirus measures against Chinese nationals, saying they are damaging relations and alarming Chinese residents of the Russian capital. The complaint, detailed in an embassy letter to the city's authorities and published by Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta late on Tuesday, deplored what it called "ubiquitous monitoring" of Chinese nationals, including on public transport in Moscow. Russia, which enjoys strong political and military ties with Beijing, does not currently have any confirmed cases of coronavirus, but has temporarily barred many categories of Chinese nationals from entering the country.
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| 1,000 tourists on a Spanish island are quarantined in their hotel after one of them tested positive for coronavirus Posted: 25 Feb 2020 04:38 AM PST  The Costa Adeje Palace is closed and its 1,000 guests stuck inside after an Italian guest was found to have the coronavirus in preliminary tests.
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| A record high: 1 in 10 eligible American voters are immigrants Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:06 AM PST  The number of immigrants eligible to vote has risen 93 percent — from 12 million in 2000 to 23.2 million in 2020.
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| Tennessee mom and grandmother of missing 15-month-old both arrested, in same jail Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:46 AM PST  The girl, Evelyn Mae Boswell, remains missing. The sheriff has said that the mother gave information that was not thought to be accurate.
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| Coronavirus: Four maps and charts that show how serious the deadly virus is Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:59 AM PST  As coronavirus continues to spread to countries across the globe, health organisations are urging governments to prepare for the worst.Currently, there are 81,191 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 2,768 people have died from the respiratory virus.
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| Bloomberg accidentally claims to have 'bought' the 2018 midterm results Posted: 25 Feb 2020 05:59 PM PST  The billionaire former mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has been slammed by his Democratic primary opponents for allegedly "buy[ing] his way into the debate[s]." On Tuesday night, he nearly admitted to buying a whole lot more than just that.The Freudian slip came as Bloomberg was bragging about spending $100 million in the 2018 midterm elections to back 21 of the 40 Democrats who were elected to the House. "All of the new Democrats that came in, put Nancy Pelosi in charge, and gave the Congress the ability to control this president, I bought — I got them," Bloomberg said, quickly correcting himself.> "I bough-- I got them" -- a Freudian slip from Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/tE9ANV711D> > — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 26, 2020Bloomberg is self-funding his campaign, the most expensive in presidential history; he broke the $500 million mark in ad spending on Monday. Read more about the former mayor's possible attempts to "buy an election" here at The Week.More stories from theweek.com Trump puts Pence in charge of coronavirus response Israel is the first country to warn its citizens not to travel abroad over coronavirus fears Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity
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| South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof staged death row hunger strike Posted: 25 Feb 2020 03:53 PM PST  White supremacist mass murderer Dylann Roof staged a hunger strike this month while on federal death row, alleging in letters to The Associated Press that he's been "targeted by staff," "verbally harassed and abused without cause" and "treated disproportionately harsh."
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| Iran’s Incompetent Response to Coronavirus Threatens the Middle East and the World Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:32 PM PST  The Iranian government has covered up an outbreak of coronavirus that now threatens the Middle East and has led to border closures and hospitalizations in five countries. Over the weekend of February 21, president Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian officials downplayed the growing crises as Iran's death toll from the virus climbed. It is now apparent that the regime, which has threatened the region with ballistic missiles, drones, naval mines, and militias over the last few years, has become a health threat as well, as it incubates a potential pandemic. The coronavirus has likely traveled from China to Iran's city of Qom along the same route that pilgrims and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps uses to travel, illustrating the regime's disregard for its own citizens and neighbors.It all began with Iran's wanting to show the world it had higher turnout at recent elections. Iranian member of parliament Mahmoud Sadeghi called on officials to take the coronavirus seriously during elections, and alleged that the government was hiding the outbreak of the contagious virus last week. Instead, Iran's regime kept the extent of the spread of the virus under wraps, keeping it off the homepages of major local media. Turkish officials also warned last week that there were 750 coronavirus cases in Iran, and that it had spread from the religious city of Qom to other regions. Yet Iran's deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi downplayed fears on Monday, claiming rumors of 50 deaths were false. Now Haririchi and Sadeghi are both sick, and Iran's death toll is the second-worst for the virus, after China itself.Iran's failure to confront the health crises is not just due to the regime's authoritarianism. China has fought the virus with authoritarian quarantining of Wuhan. Instead, it is the regime's preexisting arrogance, conspiracy-minded behavior, and siege mentality that led to its discounting an emerging crisis and enabled Shi'ite pilgrims traveling to Qom from all over the world to continue praying together and traveling without checks, becoming incubators of the virus. People returning from Iran have spread the virus across the Gulf to Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. They have returned to Najaf, a holy city in Iraq, where dozens are now under observation.Iran couldn't have chosen a worse time in the Middle East to do this. Countries such as Iraq are beset by protests and uncertainty, with Iraq specifically lacking a new government and threatened by ISIS resurgence. The Gulf already has one crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar and is economically on edge due to serving as a transport hub linked to global trade amid all this. China's coronavirus has spooked markets, and Iran is adding to the disaster.The Iranian regime has mocked coronavirus as similar to the flu in recent comments. And it has weaponized the tragedy to use it against U.S. sanctions by claiming that, like the sanctions, it is overrated. Iran's government is using the Iranian people as a human shield, and their alleged lack of suffering from the virus as a propaganda tool. Yet ultimately, the virus may be more of a threat to Rouhani's government than he realizes. With officials sick, schools closed, and the military, police, and IRGC mobilized, the regime may find that propaganda won't cure this crisis. Iran's regime has survived using brutality, killing protesters last year, shooting down an airline this year, and blaming others for its problems while it seeks to attack Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. But Iran was unprepared for an epidemic, and its normal arsenal won't save it.Unfortunately for the Gulf, Iraq, and other countries, Iran's incubation is a threat to the world now. Its airlines, such as Mahan Air, have likely spread the virus to Lebanon and brought it from China. Mahan Air and other Iranian IRGC-linked firms have transported arms and operatives throughout the region. It wouldn't be a surprise if a similar route enabled the virus to spread unchecked. The regime's toxic blend of religion, militancy, and authoritarianism have come together in the worst possible way at the worst time in a fragile region.
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| New US coronavirus case may be 1st from unknown origin Posted: 26 Feb 2020 05:37 PM PST |
| Erdogan Confirms Turkish Soldiers Killed in Libya Fighting Posted: 24 Feb 2020 11:43 PM PST |
| Two longstanding abortion-related measures fail in the US Senate Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:26 AM PST  Two longstanding abortion measures failed to advance in the Senate Tuesday after being helmed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
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| Supreme Court rules Mexican parents can't sue Border Patrol agent who killed their son Posted: 25 Feb 2020 09:05 AM PST  The ruling was a defeat for the parents of Sergio Hernandez Guereca, who was on the Mexico side when he was shot in 2010 by a Border Patrol agent who fired from the U.S. side.
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| Did CNN Just Torpedo Michael Bloomberg's Presidential Hopes? Posted: 25 Feb 2020 02:18 PM PST  Bloomberg, who as Mayor served as a Republican and then independent before joining the Democratic Party in 2018, warned about the growing progressive movement in the United States.
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| Israel is the first country to warn its citizens not to travel abroad over coronavirus fears Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:24 PM PST  Israel on Wednesday became the first country to officially warn its citizens to avoid any international travel amid fears over the coronavirus outbreak.Several airlines have canceled flights to China, where the respiratory virus originated, and governments have issued warnings about travel to certain countries, but no country has actively urged their citizens avoid traveling abroad at large until now. "If you don't genuinely have to fly — don't do so," Israel's health ministry said in a statement.Although the majority of cases remain in China, the virus has spread to several other countries. In response to criticism that the country was stoking panic and could cause both economic and diplomatic damage, the health ministry said they'd rather deal with the inconveniences now than be sorry later, The Times of Israel reports.The only confirmed Israeli cases so far involve people who were on a cruise ship that was quarantined in Japan, although South Korea — which is experiencing one of the larger outbreaks beyond China — reportedly informed Israel over the weekend that a members from a group of pilgrims returned to South Korea from Israel and tested positive for the disease. Read more at The Times of Israel.More stories from theweek.com Trump puts Pence in charge of coronavirus response Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity Trump's coronavirus response is worse than incompetent
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| A Florida woman is being accused of zipping her boyfriend into a suitcase and leaving him to die Posted: 26 Feb 2020 09:21 AM PST  Sarah Boone, 42, claimed it was just an accident. But police saw troubling videos of her taunting him as he struggled to get out of the luggage.
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| 7-year-old died 1 minute into tonsil surgery, says parents Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:23 AM PST  Parents of a 7-year-old South Carolina girl said she died one minute into surgery to have her tonsils removed. Paisley Elizabeth Grace Cogsdill died Friday at a medical center in Greenwood, WHNS-TV reported. Family members said the girl snored in her sleep but was otherwise healthy.
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| Mexico president ties shootout dead to drug consumption Posted: 26 Feb 2020 03:42 PM PST  President Andrés Manuel López Obrador suggested Wednesday without offering evidence that most of those who die in Mexico's cartel- and gang-fueled firefights are high on drugs or intoxicated, prompting criticism and questions about whether the claim was accurate. Speaking to journalists in his morning news conference, López Obrador said rising drug consumption rates must be reversed if the country is to guarantee peace and security after years of rising, record-setting homicide statistics. "Just so you have the number, 60% of those who lose their life each day, 60% of those killed in clashes, it is shown that they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but primarily drugs," the president continued.
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| Beijing’s Handling of Coronavirus Has Undermined Chinese Public’s Trust in State Media Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:51 AM PST  China's government is facing widespread criticism from its own citizens over its handling of the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus.Beijing has launched a massive propaganda campaign with stories of Chinese heroism in the struggle to contain the coronavirus, meant to unify the country's citizens behind the government. However, the government's efforts have faced scorn on Chinese social media, where citizens are openly complaining about the government's response to the crisis, New York Times reported Wednesday.The Times cited a blog post by a lawyer, Deng Xueping, excoriating the government over the coronavirus. Deng mentioned a story circulated on state media about a woman who was treated at a Wuhan hospital, but liked staying in the hospital so much that she didn't want to leave."When many patients in Wuhan were struggling to get treatment, our TV camera chose to turn to one happy outpatient," Deng wrote in the post. "By magnifying one individual's happiness while hiding the sufferings of most people there, it's hard to say such coverage was truthful about the epidemic."Some stories put out by state media are completely unbelievable. A newspaper in the city of Xi'an in central China was forced to retract a story detailing how a nurse's newborn twins asked their father where their mother had gone. The Times cited another Chinese newspaper which reported that another nurse's husband, who has been in a vegetative state since 2014, would smile whenever he "heard" his wife's name, "as if he knew that his wife was engaged in a great endeavor."There is also widespread anger over the government's initial condemnation of eight doctors who tried to warn others about the outbreak of the SARS-like illness in Wuhan in late December-early January, before the outbreak took hold in earnest. One of those doctors, Li Wenliang, tried to warn medical school friends of the illness.After Li was reprimanded by the local Wuhan government for spreading "rumors," he contracted the virus from a patient he did not know was infected. Li has since died.China has also changed its diagnostic criteria for the coronavirus multiple times, leading to confusion over the number of confirmed cases in the country. A health official from Hubei Provice, the epicenter of the outbreak, has accused the government of a lack of transparency and accuracy regarding its reporting of cases.
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| Trump news — live: President's coronavirus response slammed as 'shameful' as he spends morning picking apart 'crazy' Democrat debate Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:21 AM PST  Donald Trump's White House is facing criticism for its "insane and depressing" decision to hire 23-year-old college James Bacon for a post in its powerful Presidential Personnel Office under new director John McEntee.The president has just returned from his two-day visit to India where he set in place a lucrative arms deal with Narendra Modi and toured the country's beauty spots while being shielded from the outbreak of anti-Muslim riots, which left at least 20 people dead in New Dehli.
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| Coronavirus: Disney World tells workers who traveled to Italy to stay home amid virus fears Posted: 26 Feb 2020 03:19 PM PST  Walt Disney World instructed cast members who recently visited Italy to stay home following the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus, officials confirmed.
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| The world's biggest iPhone maker has hired the scientist known as the 'SARS hero' to oversee its reopening as it resumes production Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:07 AM PST  Apple's main manufacturing partner, Foxconn, just hired the head of China's coronavirus investigation as an adviser.
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| Erdogan rules out even 'smallest step back' in Syria's Idlib Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:19 AM PST  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday vowed Turkey would not take even the "smallest step back" in an escalating stand-off with Damascus and Russia over the northern Syrian region of Idlib. Meanwhile, a meeting between Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, could be in the pipeline, the Turkish foreign minister said, ahead of a possible summit including EU heavyweights Germany and France to find a political solution to the Idlib crisis. "We will not take the smallest step back in Idlib," Erdogan told his ruling party's lawmakers in parliament in Ankara.
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| The Trump administration is reportedly fighting over coronavirus spending Posted: 25 Feb 2020 07:53 AM PST  The coronavirus outbreak has sparked plenty of infighting and finger-pointing within the Trump administration, according to a new report.Politico on Tuesday reported that Trump officials including acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and domestic policy chief Joe Grogan have "turned their fire" on Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar as he leads the administration's coronavirus response, feeling that he "poorly coordinated the strategy, failed to escalate the potential risks to Trump and pushed for a multibillion-dollar emergency-funding request that they initially viewed as extreme."This funding, in fact, had been a "major sticking point" between the White House and Azar before the administration ultimately sought $2.5 billion from Congress on Monday, Politico writes. In response, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the administration's request "long overdue" but "completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency," NBC News reports. Additionally, Politico reports, there was "finger-pointing and second-guessing for days" after 14 Americans with coronavirus were evacuated from a cruise ship recently. Amid all this consternation, Politico writes at least two of Azar's allies are now "worried that the secretary's job is at risk if the coronavirus response goes poorly."Speaking of worrying, Trump allies and advisers are reportedly fearful of how a "botched" response to the coronavirus could affect the economy, although Trump himself continues to downplay the crisis, tweeting on Monday that "the coronavirus is very much under control in the USA." More stories from theweek.com Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity The Boston Globe endorses Elizabeth Warren. So does Ann Coulter, kind of. MSNBC's Chris Matthews hounds Warren on why she thinks Bloomberg is lying about telling a staffer to 'kill' her pregnancy
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| This Unit Had Some of the Finest Marine Aces of World War II Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:30 AM PST  They won many medals.
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| Glenn Beck, Steve King Go Conspiracy Crazy Over DHS Official’s Death Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:20 AM PST  This week: * Right-wing pundit's death fuels conspiracy theories. * The_Donald's Reddit meme cache on its last legs. * It's CPAC time!* * *Pundit's death sparks new conspiracy theories* * *The death of a former Department of Homeland Security employee last week has caught the attention of prominent conspiracy theorists, who are pinning it on none other than Barack Obama's deep state agents. But so far, the people promoting the conspiracy theories—including Glenn Beck and Rep. Steve King (R-IA)—don't really have any evidence that the death is even a murder.On Friday, sheriff's deputies in Amador County, California, found the body of Philip Haney, a former DHS employee, near an RV stop. While Haney's death is still under investigation, a sheriff's press release said Haney had suffered a "self-inflicted" gunshot wound. Haney, 66, had been briefly famous on the right as a DHS "whistleblower" during the Obama administration, appearing at a congressional hearing and on Fox News to promote his claims that Obama officials had squashed his investigations into Islamic terrorism in the United States. Since then, Haney had claimed he was on a "special covert assignment" against prominent Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a prominent Muslim-American Democrat. Even as all the evidence around Haney's death points to a suicide, Trump allies in right-wing media and government were quick to claim he had been the victim of a sinister murder plot. On Twitter, King implied that Haney had been killed for speaking out against Obama. "He was a target because of all he knew of Islamic terrorist coverups," King wrote. "He insured his life by archiving data that incriminated the highest levels of the Obama administration. Phil Haney didn't kill himself."Fox News contributor Sara Carter tweeted that Haney had been "murdered." Glenn Beck, now fully done with his attempted NeverTrump transformation and sliding anew into the crazed blackboard-theorizing Beck of the past, made dark insinuations about Haney's demise too. "He didn't kill himself," Beck said, hunched over his microphone in a camouflage jacket. "No man who speaks like Philip Haney did goes off and kills himself."Of course, it's not unusual for a mysterious death to be folded into a broader conspiracy theory—with the still-unsolved July 2016 murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich as probably the most prominent recent example. But it's remarkable how fast prominent conservatives, including an elected official, have jumped to claiming that Haney had been killed in some elaborate murder plot. To a large degree, it reflects the mainstreaming of conspiracy theory thinking within the GOP and conservative media apparatuses. The Amador Sheriff's Office, suddenly thrust into a situation where columnists are calling for an independent Justice Department investigation into Haney's death, didn't respond to my requests for comment. On Monday, the sheriff said the FBI was investigating Haney's laptop. Haney's death already appears to have some staying power beyond the usual internet news cycle. There's already talk of a tantalizing stash of documents to drive viewers' imagination, akin to Rich's laptop or the deleted Hillary Clinton emails. In this case, it's a thumb-drive of super-secret files Beck claims Haney kept on a chain around his neck. On Monday, Beck claimed he would tap Haney's chest when he saw him to make sure the thumb-drive was still there. "I was feeling the thumb drive, because there were documents that he kept around his neck," Beck said. "I only know what a few of them were. I wonder if that thumb drive was found on the body." Want this in your inbox? sign up now!* * *Reddit memelords in winter* * *Reddit administrators are cracking down on the "The_Donald" subreddit, threatening the existence of what's become both the most prominent pro-Trump site on the internet and a reliable source of memes for Trump's Twitter feed.Reddit brass have been at odds with The_Donald for years and made the forum harder to find last June after users advocated for violence against police officers. On Tuesday, they went further, ousting some of the subreddit's moderators and declaring that new moderators will need to be "vetted" by Reddit administrators before they can run the forum. A Reddit spokesperson confirmed the moves in an email to me. "Reddit may intervene from time to time when moderators are consistently in violation of our Moderator Guidelines, which can include removing a user's moderator status," the email reads. The_Donald's users haven't taken this well, turning the subreddit, briefly, into a home for memes aimed at Reddit administrators rather than Democrats. All of this likely means that The_Donald's time on Reddit and its access to Reddit's massive user base will soon come to an end. This won't be the end of The_Donald as a pro-Trump internet community, though. Sensing that an outright ban is in the offing, The_Donald's administrators have already set up a fallback site called "TheDonald.Win" and are encouraging users to migrate over. While TheDonald.Win looks just like a subreddit, it's independently run—and thus beyond the control of Reddit's administrators. Still, other right-wing groups that have been kicked off Reddit have struggled to gain traction with their own Reddit-style sites. QAnon believers who moved to another Reddit knock-off after their own Reddit bans, for example, have struggled to attract anything like the kind of Reddit-level user numbers on their backup sites. * * *What to watch for at CPAC* * *I'm off to the Conservative Political Action Conference this week for the right's annual celebration of all things Trump. But as with every CPAC, many of the more interesting stories about the direction of the conservative movement are taking place on the conference's sidelines. CPAC should see the latest clash between the right's white nationalist "groypers"—allied with prominent columnist Michelle Malkin—and conservatism's more establishment elements, with the groypers holding a rival event nearby. CPAC seems to have taken a harsher line this year on credentialing right-wing characters—last year's ban on anti-Muslim activist turned congressional candidate Laura Loomer is apparently still in place, and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes had his application for media credentials denied. Meanwhile, hapless conservative smear artists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman will be somewhere near CPAC for their annual botched press conference. Their angle this time is that the Roger Stone jury was hopelessly biased against him, based on some juror questionnaires they got their hands on. From what I've seen so far, though, this is going to be a flop. For example, Burkman and Wohl are focusing on jurors who said they watch MSNBC and CNN as "proof" that the jury was biased.Even some events from within CPAC's confines at Maryland's National Harbor resort promise to really be something. Former Superman Dean Cain is staging a dramatic reading of the Peter Strzok/Lisa Page text messages. As one of the few people unlucky enough to have already seen this bit in person a few months ago in D.C., I can confirm that Cain's mugging is as squirm-inducing as you could imagine.And then, according to the schedule, there's a "definitive rap battle" between capitalism and socialism. I'll be tweeting through all of it! 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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| Pete Buttigieg called Mike Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk record 'racist' before admitting he had a 'lot of issues' with policing in South Bend Posted: 25 Feb 2020 06:12 PM PST  The two candidates have faced scrutiny over their records on policing and racial bias as mayors of New York and South Bend, Indiana.
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| Delta offers Italy waivers: A guide to coronavirus travel warnings, flights, cruises, hotels Posted: 26 Feb 2020 05:00 PM PST  Here's a look at what the State Department, airlines and cruise lines are telling passengers amid the coronavirus outbreak.
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| Grand Teton: 36 mountain goats killed in helicopter shooting Posted: 26 Feb 2020 01:14 PM PST  Sharpshooters killed 36 mountain goats from a helicopter in a contested effort to eradicate the nonnative animals from Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Four days after Interior Secretary David Bernhardt intervened to stop the shooting on the day it began, park officials released the tally Tuesday to the Jackson Hole News & Guide. About 100 mountain goats, descendants of animals introduced outside the park decades ago, inhabit the Teton Range.
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| DOJ Creates New Unit to Strip Citizenship from Terrorists, Criminals Posted: 26 Feb 2020 10:42 AM PST  The Justice Department on Wednesday announced a new unit to handle the denaturalization of individuals who obtained citizenship illegally and other criminals.The new section dedicated to "investigating and litigating revocation of naturalization" of individuals who illegally secured naturalization or committed other serious crimes will be under the Civil Division's Office of Immigration Litigation."This move underscores the Department's commitment to bring justice to terrorists, war criminals, sex offenders, and other fraudsters who illegally obtained naturalization," DOJ said in a statement announcing the new unit."When a terrorist or sex offender becomes a U.S. citizen under false pretenses, it is an affront to our system—and it is especially offensive to those who fall victim to these criminals," Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt said.U.S. citizens can be stripped of citizenship for a variety of reasons, including becoming affiliated with a terrorist organization or a totalitarian party like the Communist Party, or if it is discovered that the person was not eligible for naturalization in the first place. The U.S. may also revoke citizenship for lying about their identity or "deliberate deceit on the part of the person" regarding other relevant information such as their employment.In 2018, former Citizenship and Immigration Services Director L. Francis Cissna said his agency was hiring several dozen lawyers and immigration officers to probe cases of individuals who were slated for deportation but later used fake identities to obtain citizenship through naturalization. Those cases would be referred to the DOJ, Cissna said at the time."We finally have a process in place to get to the bottom of all these bad cases and start denaturalizing people who should not have been naturalized in the first place," Cissna said. "What we're looking at, when you boil it all down, is potentially a few thousand cases."The U.S. started examining potentially fraudulent naturalization cases about a decade ago when a border official discovered 200 people who had been previously ordered deported but managed to obtain citizenship with false identities.The DOJ's move comes as the Trump administration continues to crack down on illegal immigration, a priority for President Trump since the earliest days of his campaign.
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| Ukraine Is Getting Stronger: What If It Could Take on Russia? Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:59 PM PST  Or is that just silly?
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| He Was Found Dead in a Lake From a Benadryl Overdose. Now His Wife Has Been Charged With Murder. Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:44 PM PST  One frigid morning in February 2018, Larry Isenberg and his wife, Lori, woke up before dawn to watch the sunrise from their boat on the picturesque Lake Coeur d'Alene in northern Idaho.But as the couple guided their boat along Sun Up Bay, their motor stalled, prompting Larry Isenberg to give it a look. Then, the unthinkable happened: the longtime forester fell overboard—just out of reach of his horrified wife. At least that was the story Lori Isenberg told authorities as she explained why her husband's body was floating somewhere in the vast lake stretching south for 25 miles."I cannot describe the pain I feel," Isenburg wrote in an email to friends obtained by The Spokesman-Review after the incident, explaining that she tried to grab for her husband but tripped on the heater and hit her head. "It is like half of me is gone."For 18 Years, Cops Thought He Was Eaten by Alligators. Now His Wife Has Been Convicted of His Murder.For two years, the drowning was believed to be the result of a tragic accident—but Idaho authorities now believe that his wife, a convicted embezzler, murdered Larry Isenberg, who was discovered in the lake with a lethal amount of Benadryl in his system."As far as we all knew, they had a great marriage," Dean Isenberg, her step-son, told KHQ on Tuesday. "It was something you could model your own relationship off of. It seemed like everything was perfect. Dad was happy. No one knew what was going on behind the scenes."Isenburg, 66, was arrested Monday on a first-degree murder charge for allegedly planning her husband's February 2018 death at the popular vacation spot near Worley, Idaho, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office told The Daily Beast. While the details of the slaying remain unknown, the 66-year-old is facing special charges tied to murders that may involve poison."I suspected, I didn't want to believe it, but I definitely suspected," the stepson said.The murder charges come over a year after Isenberg pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud in January 2019 for embezzling money from her former employer after going on the run for two months. She was sentenced to five years in federal prison and is currently being held on a $2 million bond at Kootenai County Jail, according to online jail records. On Feb. 13, 2018, Isenburg told police the pair had gotten up early to see the sunrise at Sun Up Bay, bringing along a space heater to keep warm. At some point, her husband of 14 years fell overboard while trying to check the motor that had stalled. Wife Kills Husband, Admits It in a Bar BathroomBelieving her husband "possibly had a medical episode before falling into the water," Isenburg said she waited two hours to call authorities because she didn't want to leave the area where her husband had drowned—and had left her phone at home, according to a search warrant filed in Spokane Superior Court. The Spokane County Medical Examiner, however, concluded at the time the 68-year-old showed no "visible" signs of stroke or evidence of drowning, a spokesperson told The Daily Beast. Even more ominously, the Kootenai County Coroner also found that Larry Isenberg had lethal levels of diphenhydramine—an antihistamine found in Benadryl—in his system when he died.As authorities were still desperately searching the lake's bottom for her husband, Isenberg was charged on Feb. 26 with 40 counts of forgery and a charge of grand theft for embezzling half-a-million dollars over an 18 months span from her former employer, the nonprofit North Idaho Housing Coalition (NIHC). Three days after her arrest, Larry Isenberg was found in Lake Coeur d'Alene. But by that point Lori Isenberg had already fled town, missing her first arraignment on the forgery and grand theft charges, which prompted a $500,000 warrant for her arrest."The news came out with the embezzlement case on the exact same day," Dean Isenberg said. "It was too coincidental for me. If it wouldn't have come out the way it did, we would have just thought [my dad's death] was a horrible accident."St. Louis Woman Looked Up 'What to Do if Your Husband Is Upset You Are Pregnant' Before Her Murder: WarrantsThe former NIHC executive director was on the run for two months before she eventually turned herself in to police in July 2018. Months later, four of her daughters pleaded guilty to taking money that their mom had embezzled. A search warrant for July 2018 also states that about a month before her husband died, handwritten changes were made to his will that left almost all of his estate to Lori's six children—only leaving a small portion to Larry's two adult children from another marriage.Despite his stepmother's checkered past, Dean Isenberg said his family is completely shocked by the allegations against Lori. "This blindsided us," he said. "My dad was my world."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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| China just banned the trade and consumption of wild animals. Experts think the coronavirus jumped from live animals to people at a market. Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:09 AM PST  Experts think the coronavirus jumped from animals to people in a market in Wuhan, China. Officials have now banned the wildlife trade nationwide.
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| Mom of missing Idaho kids wants $5 million bail reduced Posted: 26 Feb 2020 04:59 AM PST  A mother arrested in Hawaii in connection with the disappearance of her two Idaho children wants a judge to reconsider her $5 million bail.
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| John Bolton tries to slam Bernie Sanders for Castro remarks, rams headlong into more recent history Posted: 24 Feb 2020 09:26 PM PST  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) got some blowback Monday for comments he made on Sunday's 60 Minutes in favor of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro's literacy program. It's not clear many people outside of Florida or under age 70 have strong feelings about Castro anymore — he died in 2016, after all, and Cuba is now mostly known as a hot vacation spot. And as Sanders also said on 60 Minutes, it's not like he thinks current, nuclear-armed despot "Kim Jong Un is a good friend," and unlike President Trump. "I don't trade love letters with a murdering dictator."Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton clearly did not pay attention to that last part of the interview when he jumped in to slam Sanders for "revealing the extent of his extremism" by suggesting "Castro's communist Cuba is not all bad." So Twitter reminded him.> pic.twitter.com/N3BVcFUKX5> > — subscribe to my newsletter (@brianbeutler) February 24, 2020In any case, Sanders doesn't seem rattled by the criticism. "You know what? I think teaching people to read and write is a good thing," he said at a CNN town hall in Charleston, South Carolina, on Monday night. "I have been extremely consistent and critical of all authoritarian regimes all over the world — including Cuba, including Nicaragua, including Saudi Arabia, including China, including Russia. I happen to believe in democracy, not authoritarianism." He still doubled-down on the not-all-bad motif, saying that China, while "becoming more an more authoritarian," has also clearly "taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history."More stories from theweek.com Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity Democratic candidates yell, interrupt each other during most chaotic debate yet Bloomberg accidentally claims to have 'bought' the 2018 midterm results
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| AP Explains: Malaysia political upheaval as leader resigns Posted: 25 Feb 2020 03:39 AM PST  Malaysia's ruling alliance collapsed this week after 94-year-old Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad resigned and dozens of lawmakers defected in an audacious attempt to form a new government. The political drama unraveled Sunday as Mahathir's supporters in the four-party Alliance of Hope and opposition parties began maneuvers to take over the government and block his named successor, Anwar Ibrahim, from the top job. Several of the leaders had an audience with Malaysia's King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah in a bid to seek his backing, but an announcement didn't pan out.
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| Teacher who allegedly washed out student’s mouth with hand sanitiser receives 10-day suspension Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:12 PM PST  A Florida middle school teacher has reportedly been suspended for putting hand sanitizer in a student's mouth after he wouldn't stop chatting during class.NBC News said Guyette Duhart, a science teacher at Polo Park Middle School in Wellington, allegedly admitted holding the bottle to the child's mouth after he kept talking in class, but she denied pumping the sanitiser, NBC News reported.
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