| Knives come out for Bloomberg as billionaire former mayor rises in the polls Posted: 14 Feb 2020 11:15 AM PST  Democratic candidates and President Trump took fresh aim this week at the former New York City mayor who has staked his personal fortune on winning the White House.
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| Angry protests in Mexico after woman's gruesome killing Posted: 14 Feb 2020 06:35 PM PST  Angry demonstrations broke out in Mexico City on Friday as hundreds of women protested the gruesome slaying and mutilation of a young woman, a case that has come to personify outrage over the rising incidence of gender-related killings, or femicides. In the morning, dozens of protesters spray-painted slogans such as "We won't be silenced" on the facade and doorway of the capital's National Palace as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was holding his daily news conference inside. Some spray-painted the plastic shields of riot officers as the crowd chanted "Not one more murdered!" and "Justice!" Police unleashed pepper spray.
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| China's Hubei province enacts 'wartime' measures as coronavirus count rises to 16,427 Posted: 14 Feb 2020 09:30 AM PST  Coronavirus is continuing to spread throughout China and especially in the epicenter Hubei province, the World Health Organization said in a Friday update briefing on COVID-19.There are 47,505 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 throughout China with 1,381 deaths reported from the pneumonia-like illness it causes, including 121 deaths reported in the past day. Six of those who died were health care workers — "a critical piece of information" as WHO continues to investigate why even rigorous medical guidelines haven't stopped the spread, WHO reported Friday.A total of 1,716 health care workers in China have contracted COVID-19 despite WHO's guidelines, so this weekend, a team of 12 international and WHO experts will arrive in China to meet with local medical professionals for a "joint mission." The experts will particularly look at disease transmission and response measures to see how processes for health care workers, who "are working with virtually no sleep in difficult conditions," can be improved, WHO said.Meanwhile, Hubei, home to the epicenter city of Wuhan, is "enacting 'wartime' measures" as the number of confirmed cases in the province has climbed to 16,427. The measures include blocking people from going outside, "sealing off residential complexes and allowing only essential vehicles on the roads," The Washington Post reports. The virus has kicked off an "economic fallout" throughout China, with flower sales reportedly falling as much as 95 percent this Valentine's Day, the Post continues.More stories from theweek.com Everyone would fall for a Trump deepfake The arguments for and against Bloomberg's stance on the origins of the 2008 financial crisis The sidelining of Elizabeth Warren
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| Federal prosecutors have declined to charge former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe Posted: 14 Feb 2020 10:29 AM PST  Federal prosecutors have declined to charge former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, closing an investigation into whether he lied to federal officials about his involvement in a news media disclosure, McCabe's legal team said Friday.
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| Experts weigh in on how coronavirus may, or may not, run rampant in US in coming months Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:42 PM PST  The coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, has infected more than 60,000, killed over 1,300 and terrified millions. In the United States, residents wait with bated breath as new cases of infected Americans arise. Also worth noting is that more than 7,000 patients diagnosed with the virus have recovered, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.On Thursday, the 15th U.S. case of coronavirus was confirmed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) after a patient returned from China to Texas earlier this week."The patient is among a group of people under a federal quarantine order at JBSA-Lackland in Texas because of their recent return to the U.S. on a State Department-chartered flight that arrived on February 7, 2020," the CDC wrote in a press release. Flower shop owner Iris Leung wears her protective face mask as she delivers flowers with masks to customers on Valentine's Day in Hong Kong, Friday, Feb. 14, 2020. COVID-19 viral illness has sickened tens of thousands of people in China since December. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) Experts such as Elizabeth McGowan, however, have reason to believe the outbreak that has inflicted so many in Mainland China won't strike with the same impacts in the U.S.McGowan, who serves as director of Penn State University's Center of Infectious Disease Dynamics, said the size of cities where infections are confirmed and quarantine efforts will determine the stateside spread."I think in the U.S. it will be about locality," McGowan told AccuWeather in an interview. "I don't think it would be about culture or social behavior. I think it's going to be about whether it comes into smaller communities or bigger communities," she continued."Wuhan is a very large city [in China], with over 11 million people, so anytime you have large amounts of people in shared space you just have [a] greater risk for a greater sized outbreak. I think more than cultural differences and our behaviors between countries, it will be about where does it end up and whether we are able to successfully isolate those individuals."Two known cases of person-to-person transmission have been recorded in the U.S. so far -- one in California and one in Illinois, according to CNN.Experts have continually stressed the importance of proper preventative practices this flu season, particularly with the threat of COVID-19. McGowan, however, pushed the importance of using proper products that ensure the best protection. An employee wearing a protective face mask waits for customers at a shop in Hong Kong, Friday, Feb. 14, 2020. COVID-19 viral illness has sickened tens of thousands of people in China since December. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) "We should be washing our hands with soap and doing it effectively. If you can not use soap, you can use those hand gel, alcohol-based disinfectants," she advised. "Those need to have a percentage of alcohol that's 60 percent or greater, so you need to be careful to make sure you get the right ones, check the label, and you need to make sure you rub in for 20 seconds or so before they're effective."Along with covering mouths and staying away from people while sick, McGowan added that it's important for people who feel any symptoms coming on to stay home. Hong Kong University professor John Nicholls recently stressed similar preventative measures in email exchanges with AccuWeather."Apart from hand washing (soap is just as good as those alcohol gels) and masks, an important aspect is social distancing -- if people have symptoms stay away from other people," he said in an email on Feb. 13. "If you check the local Hong Kong media today, this was not followed by a guy who was ill but still went to work and subsequently appeared to infect other people."In a leaked private conference call with investment bankers last week, Nicholls expanded on those beliefs and described the different sanitary standards practiced in different regions. People wear protective face masks on a street in the rain in Hong Kong, Friday, Feb. 14, 2020. COVID-19 viral illness has sickened tens of thousands of people in China since December. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) "With SARS, once it was discovered that the virus was spread through the fecal-oral route, there was much less emphasis on the masks and far more emphasis on disinfection and washing hands," he said. "Hong Kong has far more cleanliness [than China] and they are very aware of social hygiene and other countries will be more aware of the social hygiene [than China]. So, in those countries, you should see less outbreaks and spreading. A couple days ago the fecal-oral route of transmission was confirmed in Shenzhen ... But in other countries the sanitation systems tends to [be] closed. My personal view is that this will be a bad cold and it will all be over by May."Nicholls seemed to soften on his certainty that COVID-19 would be nullified by May in subsequent emails to AccuWeather, but McGowan expressed similar sentiments about the effect warming weather would have on the virus and the impact it would have in countries such as the U.S.CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP"Coronaviruses are a lot like flu and cold viruses, they're transmitted in respiratory droplets when people cough and sneeze," she said. "What that means is that for their transmission to work they have to hang in the air often for enough time before they can be inhaled into someone's lungs, and we know that weather affects that. The reason cold viruses and flu viruses like coronavirus can have seasonality is because they hang in the air longer when conditions are dry and cold."Conversely, in warmer spring and summer months, McGowan explained that higher levels of humidity cause those droplets to drop to the ground quicker, lessening the capacity for viruses to spread since the droplets spend less time in the environment. Customers wearing protective face masks looks at snacks at a shop in Hong Kong, Friday, Feb. 14, 2020. COVID-19 viral illness has sickened tens of thousands of people in China since December. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) In major countries located in the Southern Hemisphere, such as Australia and New Zealand, COVID-19 could become a bigger issue in the future as major populations enter the winter months. There, McGowan said, the opposite impact on spread could occur in the coming months.One factor that could bear watching in Northern Hemisphere areas, where spring is a little more than one month away, would be if temperatures and humidity don't rise as high as some experts may think. Strange and unexpected weather factors like that could cause the virus to further mutate, although McGowan added that communities that have already been stricken by the virus are much less likely to be impacted again."We have some coronaviruses that have just become common cold viruses and they sort of continue to circulate in human populations," McGowan said. "So, there's a possibility that that could happen with this sort of virus. These viruses are always evolving and changing all the time, so that's yet to be seen. For areas where there has been a lot of infection, that virus is unlikely to reinvade that community."Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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| Are Turkey and Syria Close to Starting a War? Posted: 14 Feb 2020 05:00 PM PST  For now Turkish and Syrian ground forces appear bound on a collision course.
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| Trump and Bloomberg wage a New York-style schoolyard fight for America's future Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:52 AM PST  If overt belligerence is an unbridled expression of Donald Trump's personality, for Michael Bloomberg it is transparently a campaign strategy.
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| AOC lowers expectations on Medicare for All, admitting Sanders 'can't wave a magic wand' to pass it Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:29 PM PST  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday that if Bernie Sanders were elected president, he still might not be able to get Medicare for All, his signature health plan, passed in Congress.
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| Coronavirus quarantine: US to evacuate nearly 400 Americans on board cruise ship in Japan Posted: 15 Feb 2020 01:48 PM PST  The U.S. will evacuate the American passengers on board Princess Cruises' Diamond Princess, the U.S. Embassy in Japan announced early Saturday.
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| The US military has set up 15 coronavirus quarantine camps on its bases, and 600 citizens are still isolated there Posted: 15 Feb 2020 05:18 AM PST  At least 600 US citizens who were evacuated from Wuhan, China, are still in federal quarantine on US military bases.
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| Swarms of up to 80 Million Locusts Decimating Crops In East Africa, Threatening Food Security For 13 Million People Posted: 14 Feb 2020 09:45 AM PST  The United Nations (UN) has called on the international community to provide nearly $76 million to finance aerial spraying of pesticides in East Africa, where…
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| Amid coronavirus fears, a second wave of flu hits US kids Posted: 14 Feb 2020 09:48 AM PST  A second wave of flu is hitting the U.S., turning this into one of the nastiest seasons for children in a decade. The number of child deaths and the hospitalization rate for youngsters are the highest seen at this point in any season since the severe flu outbreak of 2009-10, health officials said Friday. Experts say it is potentially a bad time for an extended flu season, given concerns about the new coronavirus out of China, which can cause symptoms that can be difficult to distinguish from flu without testing.
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| I Am Watching China Wage a 'People's War' Against Coronavirus (65,000 Cases and Growing) Posted: 15 Feb 2020 04:46 AM PST  Our latest on-the-ground reporting as the world's emerging superpower tackles an unprecedented challenge.
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| Trump budget zeroes out funding for Stars and Stripes, the military's newspaper Posted: 14 Feb 2020 11:18 AM PST  The Trump administration pulled funding in its 2021 budget for Stars and Stripes, the U.S. military news organization that has published a daily newspaper continuously since World War II for troops stationed around the world.
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| Warren Claims Bloomberg’s ‘Redlining’ Comments Should Disqualify Him from Presidential Race Posted: 14 Feb 2020 06:47 AM PST  Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren on Thursday took direct aim at fellow 2020 contender Michael Bloomberg, saying the former New York City mayor should not be the Democratic nominee because of comments he made several years ago blaming the 2008 housing crisis on banks abandoning racially discriminatory lending practices."A video just came out yesterday in which Michael Bloomberg is saying, in effect, that the 2008 financial crash was caused because the banks weren't permitted to discriminate against black and brown people," Warren said at a town hall in northern Virginia."That crisis would not have been averted if the banks had been able to be bigger racists, and anyone who thinks that should not be the leader of our party," the progressive Massachusetts senator added.Bloomberg's 2008 comments about the housing crisis resurfaced on Wednesday, drawing accusations that he was blaming minorities for the recession that began the year before after the housing market crashed."It all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone," Bloomberg said at a Georgetown University forum at the time. "Redlining, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, 'People in these neighborhoods are poor, they're not going to be able to pay off their mortgages, tell your salesmen don't go into those areas.'"Redlining was a practice where banks outlined poor neighborhoods in red on maps and refused mortgages and loans to people, often minorities, who lived in those areas, which the banks considered financially risky.Warren also repeated her familiar refrain against how Bloomberg's billionaire status has allowed him to buy his way into the race, saying he "got in on the billionaire plan."Bloomberg campaign spokesman Stu Loeser pushed back on criticism of Bloomberg's 12-year-old comments saying that the former mayor targeted predatory lending when he was mayor and plans as president to "help a million more Black families buy a house and counteract the effects of redlining and the subprime mortgage crisis."The Thursday campaign event was Warren's first since she finished fourth in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. Before that underwhelming outcome, she finished third in Iowa caucuses, both outcomes leaving her campaign scrambling to regain momentum.
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| Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows Sanders's strength going head-to-head with rivals Posted: 14 Feb 2020 11:17 AM PST  A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that Sen. Bernie Sanders would defeat each of the other Democratic presidential candidates in a one-on-one race — in many instances by double-digit margins.
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| The US Air Force has updated and broadened its dress code to allow turbans, beards, and hijabs Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:34 AM PST  Airmen were previously allowed to make a request for religious accommodations, but they were granted on a case-by-case basis.
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| The Latest: Some who back Sanders more confident this time Posted: 15 Feb 2020 10:00 AM PST  Some Nevada Democrats who made Bernie Sanders their first choice in the state's early caucus voting say they think he has a better chance of being elected president now than he did in 2016. Solano Kline of Reno says she supported Sanders last time too, but didn't think he could win so she opted for Hillary Clinton because she was more mainstream. Kline says the whole political climate has changed since then and Sanders vs. Donald Trump would be viewed more as good vs. evil.
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| Just Ask This Russian Submarine: The Cuban Missile Crisis Nearly Ended The World Posted: 14 Feb 2020 10:30 PM PST  It was a closer call than you think.
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| Trump defends China's alleged cover-up of coronavirus victims: 'You don't want the world to go crazy' Posted: 15 Feb 2020 05:42 AM PST  Donald Trump has launched an extraordinary defence of China's alleged attempts to cover-up the extent of the spread of coronavirus.The US president, who has claimed without evidence the virus will likely "go away" by April, said Beijing has handled the epidemic "very professionally", despite accusations the country had attempted to suppress information about the crisis.
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| 'Disown them:' Biden criticizes Sanders for supporters' online attacks Posted: 15 Feb 2020 04:04 PM PST  Biden, in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," waded into a spat between Sanders supporters and leaders of The Culinary Union, a powerful labor group in Nevada that has been critical of the senator's healthcare proposals. Nevada holds the next nominating contest in the Democratic presidential primary. "He may not be responsible for it but he has some accountability," Biden said in the interview that will air on Sunday morning.
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| Two Years Later, Don’t Misplace Blame for Parkland Posted: 14 Feb 2020 12:39 PM PST  Two years ago, 17 people died in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla. In the intervening years, both those who survived it and those who observed it from afar have tried to figure out how something so terrible could have happened.That is understandable. Unfortunately, the tone of public debate on this matter was set early, and unhelpfully, on just one subject: gun control. The morning after the shooting, Parkland school superintendent Robert Runcie said that "now is the time to have a real conversation about gun control laws in our country." Just a few days later, Broward County sheriff Scott Israel said: "While the people who are victims of mental-health illnesses in this country are being treated, in the opinion of this sheriff, they should not be able to buy, surround themselves with, purchase or carry a handgun. Those two things don't mix." David Hogg, a Stoneman student at school on that evil day, demanded national action on gun control shortly after as well. "We are children. You guys are, like, the adults," he said. "Take action, work together, come over your politics, and get something done." Hogg then helped spearhead a mass political rally in Washington, D.C., the next month, the "March For Our Lives," that again emphasized this call for federal action on gun control.Those who survived something as horrendous as the Parkland shooting do not deserve unnecessary opprobrium. But the fact remains that it was not Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, President Donald Trump, or the National Rifle Association who were responsible for the murder of 17 people on that February day. It was a depressing cascade of actions (and inactions) by local actors over a series of years, and even on the day of the shooting, that sealed the victims' fate. The collective failure to recognize and accept this, even years later, may be a consequence of a political culture that insists on all problems' being made national. In any case, it simultaneously does nothing for the victims of Parkland and does little to prevent future similar slaughters.This story turns, sadly, on the shooter himself. (As recent research has suggested that media coverage of mass shootings can inspire subsequent ones, it is best not to use his name.)The shooter displayed violent tendencies from a young age, and through multiple schools, all the way up to the day he killed those 17 people. As a young child raised mostly by an adoptive single mother, he often fought with neighborhood children. He tortured animals. He argued frequently with his own family, quickly escalating verbal confrontations to physical ones. At one point, he required a physical harness to ride the school bus without attacking other students. Throughout his grade-school and middle-school years, he physically and verbally assaulted students and bragged about his mutilations of animals. He attempted to commit suicide during a fire drill. When transferred to a school for students with special needs, he openly obsessed over guns and violence, at one point bringing a weapon to the school. He continued virtually all of these behaviors as he matriculated into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, getting into several fights, sending death threats to ex-girlfriends and others, openly proclaiming his desire to shoot up the school to anyone who would listen, dressing in full camouflage gear, bringing dead animals to class, and, once again, bringing weapons (knives and bullet casings) to school grounds. All of this happened before February 14, 2018; he was seriously punished for surprisingly little of it.Could hindsight be 20/20? After the fact, many of these school shootings seem obvious, and their perpetrators fit a similar pattern: young, isolated, troubled, aggrieved, male. But it is impossible to overlook the sheer number of times somebody actively warned about the Parkland shooter's tendencies only to be ignored.Florida mental-health officials declined on multiple separate occasions to institutionalize him. On February 5, 2016, the shooter posted a picture of himself posing with a gun to his Instagram account with the caption: "I am going to get this gun and shoot up the school." A woman alerted a Broward County sheriff about this; he said there was nothing he could do. There were literally dozens of police visits to his house over the years. After he entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas, something his therapist advised against, school staff held a meeting in which they pegged him as the likeliest school shooter among their student body. Eventually, he was forbidden from bringing a backpack to school. When ultimately forced out of the school for academic reasons, he trespassed on school grounds on the first day of the 2017–18 academic year. A YouTube account in his actual name commented on a video that he wanted to become a professional school shooter; the video's uploader contacted the FBI, which did nothing. Another woman, a family friend, alerted both the Broward County sheriff's office and the FBI about the shooter's consistently violent Instagram posts; neither acted on the tip. And a former Secret Service agent warned Parkland officials of the likelihood of a mass shooting given their security protocols.Little, if anything, was done. Demonstrating a horrifying and ultimately damning passivity, a series of ostensibly responsible adults passed up every chance to thwart an increasingly obvious imminent evil.But the failures of those in charge at and around Marjory Stoneman Douglas did not end in the lead-up to the shooting itself. On the very day, their actions enabled, prolonged, and worsened the massacre. The shooter walked right onto school grounds through a gate that security protocols said ought to have been closed. When he got there, campus-security monitor Andrew Medina saw him, recognized him, and knew he no longer belonged at the school. He declined to initiate school security procedures, as Ty Thompson, the principal, had reserved that authority for himself but was away from campus. Medina radioed David Taylor, another campus-security monitor, who went into the building where the shooter had entered, then hid in a closet when he began hearing gunshots, also without initiating security procedures. Meanwhile, school resource officer Scot Peterson, the only other armed person on school grounds, had been informed of gunfire in the school — yet stood idly outside of the affected building for almost an hour, awaiting the arrival of Broward sheriff deputies. They too did little but wait outside the building. And finally, due to miscommunication, Jan Jordan, the captain of the Parkland district of the Broward sheriff's office, thought that recorded security footage of the shooter was live and delayed allowing both deputies and medics into the building until it was "empty" (on the basis of out-of-date information).By the time officers entered the building, the perpetrator had already fled school grounds with evacuating students. It was a shocking display of incompetence, inaction, and indecision that allowed the Parkland shooting to become what it did. (This is not even an exhaustive account; read the book by education-policy writer Max Eden and father of Parkland victim Andrew Pollack, Why Meadow Died: The People and the Policies That Created the Parkland Shooter and Endanger America's Students for more.)Seen in this light, the after-the-fact statements by Runcie, Israel, and others blaming the lack of gun control seem more like deflection than any genuine attempt to figure out what happened that day. For they would have to blame themselves, not pat themselves on the back for their "amazing leadership," to get to the bottom of the events that unfolded. The proximate causes of the tragedy were choices various local actors made -- or, in most cases, did not make. They, not some far-off villain with only marginal influence on their day-to-day lives, deserve to be held responsible. As Pollack puts it in Why Meadow Died, "Parkland was the most avoidable mass shooting in American history."As for Hogg and those like him, it is unfortunate that they followed the lead of these deflecting adults in seeking blame afar. They still have every right to be angry. But the proper target of ire ought to be the officials and policies that directly failed him and all the rest at Stoneman Douglas that day, those who lived and those who died. On the second anniversary of Parkland, let us hope that we can think clearly about the best way to stop anything like it from happening again.
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| Barr assigns outside prosector to review Michael Flynn case in 'highly unusual' move Posted: 14 Feb 2020 11:18 AM PST  Attorney General William Barr is having an outside prosecutor review the criminal case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, The New York Times reports. The Times notes this is a "highly unusual" move, which could "trigger more accusations of political interference by top Justice Department officials into the work of career prosecutors." Barr has reportedly been installing outside prosecutors to review numerous politically-sensitive cases including that of the former Trump adviser, who in 2017 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. Since then, Flynn has been trying to change his plea to not guilty, saying last month, "In truth, I never lied." Jeff Jensen of the office of the United States attorney in St. Louis is reportedly examining the Flynn case. The news came almost immediately after the Department of Justice said it wouldn't be charging former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a whiplash of stories likely to make Trump angry and then pleased in that order. This also comes at the end of a week in which the Justice Department suddenly reversed its sentencing recommendation of up to nine years in prison for longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, leading four prosecutors in the case to quit. Trump, who criticized the original sentencing recommendation, subsequently congratulated Barr "for taking charge" of the case. Trump on Friday claimed he has "the legal right" to ask Barr to get involved in criminal cases but said "I have so far chosen not to!" More stories from theweek.com Everyone would fall for a Trump deepfake The arguments for and against Bloomberg's stance on the origins of the 2008 financial crisis The sidelining of Elizabeth Warren
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| Australian soldiers caring for rescued koalas Posted: 14 Feb 2020 09:19 PM PST  The soldiers fed 28 rescued koalas and helped build climbing structures for them in their new home.
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| Air strikes on Yemen kill 31 civilians after Saudi jet crash Posted: 15 Feb 2020 04:55 PM PST  Thirty-one people were killed in air strikes on Yemen Saturday, the United Nations said, the victims of an apparent Saudi-led retaliation after Iran-backed Huthi rebels claimed to have shot down one of its jets. The deadly violence follows an upsurge in fighting in northern Yemen between the warring parties that threatens to worsen the war-battered country's humanitarian crisis. "Preliminary field reports indicate that on 15 February as many as 31 civilians were killed and 12 others injured in strikes that hit Al-Hayjah area... in Al-Jawf governorate," the office of the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen said in a statement.
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| Best Washing Machines of 2020 Posted: 14 Feb 2020 01:17 PM PST  For most of us, doing laundry is a chore. But for Consumer Reports' testers, it's a mission. Our laundry lab hums year-round as the testers work to determine the best models for every budget and ...
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| Why this mother wants to warn people about the dangers of cannabis Posted: 14 Feb 2020 09:57 AM PST  Regina Denney lost her son to cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, an illness that affects some individuals who consume cannabis. Hot showers and the consumption of hot peppers are the only ways that individuals with CHS can find relief from the violent vomiting that this illness induces. Doctors are trying to find a cure, but currently the only way to get better is to quit consuming cannabis altogether.
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| Iran: Trump wrong if he thinks Tehran regime will collapse Posted: 15 Feb 2020 08:26 AM PST  Iran's foreign minister said Saturday that U.S. President Donald Trump is receiving bad advice if he believes an American "maximum pressure" campaign against his country will cause the government in Tehran to collapse. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a group of top defense officials and diplomats at the Munich Security Conference that the information provided to the president has dissuaded Trump from accepting offers from other leaders to mediate between Washington and Tehran. "President Trump has been convinced that we are about to collapse so he doesn't want to talk to a collapsing regime," Zarif said.
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| Former employee says he heard Bloomberg ask a female co-worker if she was going to 'kill it' after announcing her pregnancy Posted: 15 Feb 2020 10:02 AM PST  "Mike came out and I remember he said, 'Are you going to kill it?' And that stopped everything. And I couldn't believe it," the former employee said.
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| Bosnian police tussle with migrants protesting over camp conditions Posted: 15 Feb 2020 08:52 AM PST  Bosnian police scuffled on Saturday with hundreds of migrants who tried to break out of an overcrowded camp during a protest over conditions at the facility and their treatment by authorities in nearby Croatia. The Miral camp lies in western Bosnia, just 10 km (six miles) from the Croatian border, and currently houses about 1,000 migrants -- 300 more than its capacity. Witnesses saw police scuffling with migrants and detaining several people during Saturday's protest, in which the mostly male protesters chanted "Freedom", "Give us our money back" and "Stop beating us".
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| Navy Warhips Ought To Fear Russia's New Stealth Fighter Posted: 15 Feb 2020 08:30 AM PST  It'll sink them.
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| 14-year-old boy charged with murder in stabbing death of Barnard College student Tessa Majors Posted: 15 Feb 2020 12:16 PM PST  Majors, 18, was at Morningside Park in New York City on Dec. 11 when three teenagers tried to rob her. She was stabbed repeatedly during a struggle.
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| Tennessee Republicans worry women will go on tampon-buying frenzy Posted: 14 Feb 2020 03:00 AM PST  During an annual three-day holiday, shoppers are allowed to buy computers and clothing tax-free, but a proposal to include tampons has gotten pushbackWomen can't be trusted around tax-free tampons. If you cut the price of menstrual products they're bound to go tampon-mad and buy boxes of the stuff, just for the hell of it. They'd line their walls with super-plus, they'd polish their floors with pads; it would be absolute bedlam.That appears to be what Republicans in Tennessee think, anyway. On Tuesday GOP lawmakers pushed back against a proposal that would include sanitary products in Tennessee's annual sales-tax holiday. The three-day event, held at the end of July, allows shoppers to buy items like computers and clothing without paying the usual 7% state sales tax."I would think since it's a sales tax holiday, there's really no limit on the number of items anybody can purchase," said Joey Hensley, the Republican senator, during a debate on the bill. "I don't know how you would limit the number of items someone could purchase."Hensely's legislative assistant later explained that his questions were prompted by concerns "that the possibility of people purchasing large quantities had not been factored in when determining the cost of the legislation". One would not want Tennessee to be bankrupted by residents bulk-buying tampons, after all.Menstrual products are a necessity, not a luxury; and yet, across America and around the world, they're still largely taxed as the latter. Products such as Viagra and Rogaine, however, are not subject to sales tax in America because they're considered medically necessary. Why is this the case? As President Obama joked back in 2016, "I suspect it's because men were making the laws when those taxes were passed."The annual tax revenue from menstrual products is not insignificant, ranging from around $1m in Utah to $20m in California. This is money a lot of states don't want to lose; after all they might then have to make the funds up via drastic measures like taxing billionaires a little more. In 2016, Jerry Brown, the Democratic governor of California at the time, vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have exempted menstrual products from sales tax, saying it would cost the state too much in lost revenue. Brown also shot down similar bills which would have ended certain state taxes for diapers.Over the last few years there's been increased global activism and awareness around the so-called tampon tax, and some progress has been made. Between 2016 and 2018, five US states (Nevada, New York, Florida, Connecticut and Illinois) got rid of the tax, and at least 22 states introduced bills to repeal the tax last year. California also suspended the tax in a law that went into effect on January 1, though the exemption, which also includes diapers, expires in 2022. As it stands, a tampon tax is still in place across 33 states.In 2004, Kenya became the first country in the world to end a value-added sales tax on menstrual products. Thanks to pressure from female parliamentarians, the nation has since implemented a number of progressive period policies. In 2010 it allocated almost $4m to provide free sanitary pads to schoolgirls.Canada, India, Australia, Malaysia, and Germany have all jettisoned the tampon tax in the past few years, following pressure from activists. The UK still has a 5% tax (down from an original 20%), but in 2015 set up a tampon tax fund and pledged that the money raised would be spent on women's charities.Scrapping sales tax on menstrual products and treating them like the necessities they are is an important step towards period equity. But even without sales tax, the items are still expensive and many women struggle to afford them. Last year a survey of low-income women in St Louis, Missouri, found nearly two-thirds couldn't afford menstrual hygiene products during the previous year, and one in five struggled to buy the products every month. Meanwhile, just across the border in Tennessee, we've got Republicans worrying women might abuse the system by splurging on tax-free tampons.
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| South Carolina lawmakers suggest Biden may be taking black voters in the state for granted Posted: 15 Feb 2020 08:21 AM PST  It's safe to say former Vice President Joe Biden's performances in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary did not go as planned.Fourth- and fifth-place finishes don't look very good when you were once considered the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, but the Biden campaign has been waiting for South Carolina to vote later this month. Biden has traditionally dominated in polls there, and he's still the favorite. But it no longer seems like a lock, Politico reports.Part of that is because he's apparently losing some steam with the state's black voters. Biden's support among African-American voters has been a major focus of his campaign, but some people believe the vice president has been a little too sure of himself. "I think some people feel like because he had such a wide lead and we have such a long history with him that maybe there was some sort of taking for granted that the support would remain," said Tameika Isaac-Devine, a councilwoman in Columbia, South, Carolina, who hasn't endorsed any contender yet.South Carolina State Rep. John King said he's backing billionaire Tom Steyer instead of Biden in part because, while the latter may believe he has the state's African-American vote, "he has not spent time in South Carolina and [Steyer's] people are on the ground." Read more at Politico.More stories from theweek.com Everyone would fall for a Trump deepfake The arguments for and against Bloomberg's stance on the origins of the 2008 financial crisis The sidelining of Elizabeth Warren
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| This college was accredited by a DeVos-sanctioned group. We couldn’t find evidence of students or faculty. Posted: 15 Feb 2020 10:35 AM PST  At present, Reagan National University apparently has no students or faculty. Yet it was accredited -- by a group saved by the Education Department.
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| Alabama Lawmaker Protests Abortion Restrictions by Introducing Bill Requiring Men to Undergo Vasectomy after Third Child Posted: 14 Feb 2020 06:51 AM PST  An Alabama state lawmaker has introduced a bill imposing restrictions on the reproductive rights of men as a statement against abortion restrictions.Representative Rolanda Hollis, a Democrat from Birmingham, proposed a law that would require men to obtain a vasectomy within one month of their 50th birthday or the birth of their third biological child, whichever occurs first. Men would also be required to pay for the procedure out of their own pockets."Under existing law, there are no restrictions on the reproductive rights of men," the bill reads."The Vasectomy bill is to help with the reproductive system. This is to neutralize the abortion ban bill," Hollis wrote in a tweet. "The responsibility is not always on the women. It takes 2 to tangle. This will help prevent pregnancy as well as abortion of unwanted children."Hollis was referring to Alabama's near-total ban on abortions, which was scheduled to take effect in November but was struck down by a federal court the month before. The Human Life Protection Act bans almost all abortions, including in cases of rape and incest, and includes and exception only for when the mother's life is in danger.Supporters of the ban said their goal was that court challenges of the law would lead the case to the newly conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which could use it to reconsider Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide, and Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, which upheld the right to abortion."As we have stated before, the state's objective is to advance our case to the U.S. Supreme Court" where Alabama intends to prove the two cases were "wrongly decided and that the Constitution does not prohibit states from protecting unborn children from abortion," Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement.
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| Trump's threatening tweet about criminal cases shows president expanding powers after impeachment acquittal Posted: 14 Feb 2020 10:27 AM PST  Donald Trump, with both words and deeds, is presenting a new theory for presidential power since being impeached by House Democrats but acquitted by Senate Republicans.In one of his most brazen threats yet, the president on Friday morning told the world he is poised to burn down a norm that has long allowed the Justice Department to operate mostly without political influence.
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| Michael Bloomberg's employees created a book purportedly full of his offensive quotes. Here it is. Posted: 15 Feb 2020 03:43 PM PST  A book of risqué and off-color sexist remarks purportedly by Michael Bloomberg haunts his presidential campaign. Insider is publishing a copy of it.
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| North Korea's Kim makes first public appearance in 22 days amid virus outbreak Posted: 15 Feb 2020 01:48 PM PST  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his first public appearance in 22 days amid an outbreak of coronavirus, state media reported on Saturday, to visit a national mausoleum and mark the anniversary of the late leader Kim Jong Il's birth. Kim Jong Un paid tribute to the statue of former leader Kim at Pyongyang's Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, his first public appearance since he attended Lunar New Year celebrations on Jan. 25, state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
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| Virginia teen accused of killing mother, brother arrested Posted: 15 Feb 2020 10:51 AM PST |
