| Can Democrats turn Texas blue? Posted: 07 Mar 2020 10:06 AM PST  Republicans have carried Texas in every presidential contest since 1980, often by substantial margins. Both houses of the state legislature have been red for nearly 20 years. Despite all that, Democrats have eyed Texas as a possible game changer for a long time. As the second most populous state, Texas carries an Electoral College payload that could fundamentally shift the balance of presidential power.
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| Amy Klobuchar sparks Biden vice president rumours after slip of the tongue at rally Posted: 08 Mar 2020 07:49 AM PDT  Amy Klobuchar had a slip of tongue when speaking to a crowd of supporters, suggesting she might be Joe Biden's pick for vice president.The Minnesota senator was speaking at a campaign rally for Mr Biden on Saturday in Michigan when she sparked the rumours.
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| Iranian Lawmaker Dies of Coronavirus as Infections Spread Posted: 07 Mar 2020 07:10 AM PST |
| U.S. says it is tracking ship that may have shared crew with coronavirus-hit cruise liner Posted: 07 Mar 2020 02:17 PM PST  The United States is tracking a cruise ship that may have shared crew members with a ship carrying people who tested positive for COVID-19, Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday. "We are tracking at this point a ship that may have shared crew with the Diamond Princess or the Grand Princess and we've taken decisive action to hold until we do a full medical assessment of the crew on that ship," Pence said after a meeting with cruise line industry officials in Florida. The Grand Princess is currently in waters off San Francisco after 21 people on board tested positive for a sometimes deadly respiratory illness dubbed COVID-19.
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| 5 arrests in brutal Brooklyn gang assault Posted: 07 Mar 2020 06:31 AM PST  Police have charged five teenage boys in connection with a brutal gang assault and robbery caught on camera in Brooklyn.
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| Trump is reportedly fixated on keeping the number of official US coronavirus cases as low as possible—despite indications the disease has spread wider than he wants Posted: 07 Mar 2020 09:20 PM PST  Trump has expressed that he wants the number of US coronavirus cases kept as low as possible, and frequently compares the numbers to other countries.
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| Nevada high court defends Tahoe bear activists' free speech Posted: 08 Mar 2020 08:12 AM PDT  Social media comments about protecting bears that were posted by Lake Tahoe activists referring to a longtime wildlife biologist as a murderer constitute "good faith communications" protected as free speech, the Nevada Supreme Court says. The recent opinion doesn't end a lawsuit filed in Washoe County District Court in Reno.
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| How can I get tested for coronavirus? What you should know about test kits Posted: 07 Mar 2020 02:20 AM PST  According to the Association of Public Health Laboratories, there are 69 local and state public health labs that cover 46 states, including D.C.
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| Days After Rep. Matt Gaetz Wore a Gas Mask to Vote on COVID-19 Funding, the Virus Killed One of His Constituents Posted: 08 Mar 2020 11:50 AM PDT  Gaetz released a statement to say that he was 'extremely saddened' by the news
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| Somalia: The Pentagon's new 'endless war'? Posted: 07 Mar 2020 05:27 PM PST  The Pentagon has been issuing near daily announcements of new strikes against the Islamic militants of Shebab in Somalia, seemingly without affecting the Al-Qaeda affiliate's ability to destabilize the country, in what is looking like a new "endless war" for the United States. The Trump administration's plans to reduce its military presence in Africa while re-centering its efforts toward two key strategic competitors -- China and Russia -- are coming at the expense of French-led operations against jihadists in the Sahel region. "Al-Shebab is one of the biggest threats on the continent; they have aspirations to attack the (US) homeland," General Roger Cloutier, commander of US land forces in Africa, recently declared.
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| Bernie Sanders Feels Joe Biden Is ‘Up to the Task’ of the ‘Rigors’ of Being President Posted: 08 Mar 2020 07:20 AM PDT  In the wake of many of his supporters and progressives openly questioning the cognitive capabilities of former Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said on Sunday that he doesn't make "personal attacks" on Biden while waving off concerns that the ex-veep isn't "up to the task" of being president.Appearing on CNN's State of the Union, the democratic-socialist Vermont senator was asked by anchor Jake Tapper about tweets his campaign staff sent over the weekend comparing Sanders' robust campaigning to Biden's lighter schedule."Bernie has three public events just today in two different states, each speaking engagement extending for close to an hour," Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir tweeted in response to a report that Biden spoke for just seven minutes at a Saturday rally in St. Louis.Why the Democratic Race Isn't Close to Over"Do you think that Vice President Biden is not up to the task in terms of the rigors of being either the Democratic nominee or being the president?" Tapper wondered aloud."No," Sanders responded. "No, I think what we're talking about is my schedule, which I just mentioned to you. By the way, we're in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and later this afternoon we'll hold a rally here."After noting that Rev. Jesse Jackson would be joining him on the trail and supporting his campaign, Sanders pointed out that he wouldn't be taking personal shots at his Democratic primary rival."But look, Joe Biden is a friend of mine and Joe and I have disagreements on the issues," Sanders added. "I do not make personal attacks on Joe."Earlier in the interview, Sanders also said that while he was the best candidate to win over Midwestern voters, such as in Michigan, he also felt that Biden could defeat Trump if the ex-veep became the nominee."I've been asked a million times and I believe Joe can beat Trump," Sanders said. "I believe if Joe is the candidate, I'll do everything I can to ensure that he does."In the wake of Biden leapfrogging Sanders as the Democratic frontrunner, many of the former vice president's critics on the left have openly begun suggesting that the 77-year-old candidate is suffering from cognitive decline."After disappearing for the week, this isn't a convincing response to growing concerns—first implied in the debates by Julian Castro, then raised by Cory Booker, today reported in @Politico—about Biden's cognitive decline," The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald tweeted on Saturday. "Soon he'll just appear by hologram, spouting phrases."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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| Televangelist ordered by New York attorney general to stop promoting ‘cure’ for coronavirus Posted: 08 Mar 2020 09:27 AM PDT  A Christian televangelist has been ordered by New York's attorney general to stop promoting a "cure" for the coronavirus to the public.The cease-and-desist letter was sent to the Jim Bakker Show after it had naturopathic doctor Sherrill Sellman as a guest on 12 February.
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| Washington State mulling mandatory measures to contain coronavirus Posted: 08 Mar 2020 07:39 AM PDT |
| 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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| North Korea Launched Unidentified Projectile, South Korea Says Posted: 08 Mar 2020 04:24 PM PDT |
| Italy has put 16 million people on lockdown to control the escalating coronavirus outbreak Posted: 08 Mar 2020 01:42 AM PST  Schools, museums, theaters, and swimming pools have been shut down in Lombardy and 14 other provinces. Italy has reported 5,883 cases of COVID-19 and 233 deaths so far.
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| Coronavirus: Steps to stay safe Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:43 AM PDT  Dr. Jon LaPook with the latest on the virus' spread in the U.S., and what precautions you should take to avoid infecting yourself and others.
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| At least 26 Iraqis among killed in Syria road accident Posted: 08 Mar 2020 04:13 AM PDT |
| Kamala Harris Endorses Joe Biden as Rev. Jesse Jackson Officially Backs Bernie Sanders Posted: 08 Mar 2020 09:22 AM PDT  "I believe in Joe," Harris said
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| The Boeing 737 MAX Nightmare Keeps Getting Worse Posted: 06 Mar 2020 05:06 PM PST  Nearly a year after a second crash of a Boeing 737 MAX that led to its grounding, the full extent of the company's complicity and negligence, abetted by regulators, is revealed by a damning report from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.And the issue of how soon this deeply flawed company culture and regulatory system will be fixed becomes even more urgent.One thing is for sure: in the history of air crash investigations, since the beginning of the Jet Age 60 years ago, there has never been such a serious and sustained breakdown in the safeguards intended to keep flying safe.I have covered the MAX catastrophe for The Daily Beast since the first crash, of Lion Air Flight 610 in Indonesia that killed 189 passengers and crew on October 29, 2018. Like many other reporters, I was stonewalled and misled by Boeing's carefully orchestrated and sustained campaign to resist grounding the airplane. For example, it was obvious to me and other experienced reporters that the Lion Air pilots had been swiftly overcome by a problem that that they had not been trained to prepare for because it was related to a new control system, Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), that they—along with all other MAX flight crews—did not know even existed.How Boeing's Bean-Counters Courted the 737 MAX DisasterBoeing Fires its CEO at Last. And Before Anybody Flies on a 737 MAX, 10 Questions Need AnsweringAnd yet Boeing insisted to us that the pilots could have overcome this fatal malfunction by treating it as a condition known as "runaway stabilizer"—one that was actually included in the flight manual as a legacy item—even though the actions triggered by the MCAS were far more extreme.Now the House report confirms, shockingly, that Boeing knew all the time that the pilots had only 10 seconds to identify the problem and deal with it before being overpowered by the MCAS's rogue actions.Furthermore, when I suggested to Boeing that it seemed that the Lion Air crash was very likely caused by what is called a single-point failure—in other words, one flawed system had fatal consequences because there was no backup system to check and correct it, an accepted bedrock principle of safety regimes—the company robustly denied this.When the MCAS was fatally triggered it was responding to false data fed to it from a sensor on the jet's nose that suggested that the airplane was approaching a stall, when it was not. The House report confirms that at least 80 percent of the world's fleet of MAX jets were not fitted with a warning light that would have alerted pilots to a false reading—because this was an optional extra that airlines chose not to adopt.And the report reveals for the first time that in 2013 a Boeing engineer suggested that the MAX should be equipped with a synthetic air speed indicator, a computer-based system first used on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, that would have provided a far more reliable backup system in the case of false readings. Boeing management rejected this proposal because it would have entailed providing pilots with simulator training—something that the company was determined to avoid on the grounds of costs. In fact, the report reveals, in 2017 Boeing's chief test pilot responded to suggestions that simulator training was needed because of the MCAS system, by saying, "Boeing will not allow that to happen. We'll go face to face with any regulator who tries to make that a requirement."Perhaps the most dismaying revelation about the complete collapse of the safety ethic among Boeing's management is that throughout the development of the jet there were frequent warnings from engineers that decisions were being taken that jeopardized its safety. In fact, the committee's investigators say that their report was informed by "numerous whistleblowers."By the time that the FAA certified that the MAX was safe to fly, early in 2017, it was clear that the agency's culture was as steadfastly in denial as Boeing—even though there were already people in the FAA who knew how dangerous the situation was. For example, as the report points out, after the Lion Air crash, the FAA carried out a risk assessment that calculated if no fixes were made to the airplane's known flaws there would be at least 15 more catastrophic crashes during the jet's expected time in service. And yet Boeing and the FAA together refused to take action as more and more of the jets entered airline service every week—until, on March 10, 2019, another jet operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed, killing all 157 passengers and crew. And, even then, the FAA was the last of the world's regulators to ground the jets.It's clear that Boeing has already decided who should be thrown under the bus for their own failings: Dennis Muilenburg, its boss who was fired in December. His successor, David Calhoun, told The New York Times that Muilenburg had put profits before quality:"I'll never be able to judge what motivated Dennis, whether it was a stock price that was going to continue to go up and up, or whether it was just beating the other guy…if anybody ran over the rainbow for the pot of gold on stock, it would have been him."That was a surprising abdication of Calhoun's own responsibility, since he had been a member of Boeing's board for the whole period of the MAX's development. Challenged on this by the Times, Calhoun said, "Boards are invested in their C.E.O.s until they are not."Given that attitude, there's a lot about Boeing's standards of governance that is as worrying as its standards of engineering.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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| Coronavirus may force Americans to avoid crowds and cancel cruises, health official warns Posted: 08 Mar 2020 11:15 AM PDT  WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans, especially those who are vulnerable, may need to stop attending big gatherings as the coronavirus spreads through U.S. communities, a top health official said on Sunday, as investors braced for another volatile week in financial markets. Anthony Fauci, the head of the infectious diseases unit at the National Institutes of Health, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that after initial missteps distributing tests, there should be 400,000 more tests available by Monday and 4 million by the end of the week. In the United States, 19 people have died out of about 450 reported cases of coronavirus, which originated in China last year and causes the sometimes deadly respiratory illness COVID-19.
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| America's housing crisis Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Millions of Americans can no longer dream of buying a home. Rental apartments are also unaffordable. Why? Here's everything you need to know:What's gone wrong? From cities to suburbs to rural America, the cost of housing has far outpaced increases in salaries. Home prices are growing at twice the rate of wages, and there are fewer houses on the market than in any year since 1982. The single-family house, with a garage and a front lawn, remains a bedrock of the American dream, even as it recedes from many people's reach. Young adults are one-third less likely to be homeowners than the previous generation was at the same age, and nearly two-thirds of renters say they can't afford a house. The median single-family house costs about $280,000, with demand driving prices at the lower end of the market to rise twice as fast as those of high-end homes. Once the backbone of U.S. wealth, housing has become a civic, economic, and environmental catastrophe.Is renting any better? It's even worse. Nearly half of renters are cost-burdened — meaning they spend at least 30 percent of their income on rent. Since 1960, renters' average earnings have increased 5 percent as rents have jumped 61 percent. Eleven million Americans spend more than half of their paycheck on rent. They have little choice: After 2011, more than 4 million units renting for $800 or less per month disappeared nationwide. In trendy cities like Seattle and Austin, older, multifamily buildings are being demolished or converted into condominiums and co-ops. A minuscule percentage of new apartments are low-rent. Today, a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a two-bedroom rental in precisely zero U.S. counties; on average, it would take clocking 127 hours a week at the federal minimum wage to make paying for one possible.Are expectations too high? After World War II, home ownership went from a luxurious status symbol to a national priority. "A nation of homeowners, of people who own a real share in their own land, is unconquerable," President Franklin Roosevelt said in 1942. Zoning changes helped create the suburbs, as did improved cars and new roads, enabling people to live farther from work. Mortgage markets developed, and the rate of homeownership grew from 43 percent in 1940 to 66 percent by 2000. The size of houses per resident also doubled in that period. It became conventional wisdom to borrow as much as possible, buy the biggest house attainable, and hold on as the property steadily grew in value. But that's no longer feasible for many people: In 1990, 18 months of the median local salary could buy a house in 72 of America's 100 largest cities, Harvard University found. Now that's possible in just 25 of them.What's jacking up costs? Demand, above all. Houses are supposed to pass between generations, but Baby Boomers are living longer and staying put. People are also moving less than ever, down to 10 percent of the population annually. After the recession, private-equity firms and hedge funds spent an estimated $36 billion on more than 200,000 homes in ailing markets, and their strategy was to evict current residents and target the ultrawealthy. In New York City, homeless shelters have been filling at the same time towering new luxury condos rise into the skyline. Since 2011, the average cost of a New York condo rocketed from $1.15 million to $3.77 million. Even more perversely, nearly half of Manhattan's new luxury condos are empty.Why not build more housing? The cost of land and building materials such as timber and steel keeps climbing, and there are major shortages of construction workers. That makes it financially unfeasible to build low-income housing. In San Francisco, where the median one-bedroom rental goes for $3,700 per month, it costs $700,000 to build a single new apartment unit. "In a lot of cities, the market can't supply housing for people making less than six figures," said James Madden, a Seattle-based affordable-housing developer. Even when developers do seek to build dense rental or condo units with affordable prices, they run into NIMBY — the "not in my back yard" attitude of existing residents who insist that new construction and new residents will disrupt their views, schools, parking, and property values.Can NIMBY be defeated? Government initiatives can only achieve so much without current homeowners making concessions. California is plagued by crippling housing costs and widespread homelessness, but recently the legislature narrowly failed to pass a law that would have overridden local zoning rules to allow high-density housing. NIMBY is on vivid display in Lafayette, Calif., a wealthy town of 25,000 outside San Francisco. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said the state must build 3.5 million homes by 2025 to ease the affordability crisis, yet Lafayette residents were outraged by a proposal to build 315 new apartment units near a commuter train station. When developers and the city manager, Steve Falk, agreed to a compromise of 44 single-family homes on the site, residents went to court to fight that too. Falk resigned, saying he couldn't oppose such a modest plan amid a massive housing crisis. "My conscience," Falk said, "won't allow it."The racial gap in home ownership Scarce housing is behind a surprising number of social problems. Transportation accounts for about one-third of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, and much of that is due to obscene commuting times in cities and suburbs with inadequate mass transit. (Four million Americans spend at least three hours every day driving to and from work.) There's a substantial racial gap among homeowners, with black and Hispanic Americans more than 25 percent less likely to own a home than whites. That gap, which is at least partly caused by redlining and racist lending policies, reinforces racial wealth disparities and impedes social mobility. The poor of all races are most affected by housing shortages and costs; by one estimate, there are now only 37 available affordable units for every 100 extremely poor households. In California, state lawmakers have allowed homeowners to convert garages into residential spaces and build small homes in their backyards, known as granny flats or casitas, that they can rent out. Ben Metcalf, the state's former director of Housing and Community Development, compares renting out parts of your property to growing "victory gardens" during World War II food shortages. "Your civic duty as a Californian," he said, "is you've got to convert your garage."This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, try the magazine for a month here.More stories from theweek.com Is coronavirus really a black swan event? China's coronavirus recovery is 'all fake,' whistleblowers and residents claim Former FDA chief urges government to incentivize localities to shut down their economies amid coronavirus spread
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| Barr Increasingly Appears Focused on Undermining Mueller Inquiry Posted: 07 Mar 2020 07:13 AM PST  WASHINGTON -- Attorney General William Barr testified before Congress last spring that "it's time for everybody to move on" from the special counsel investigation into whether Donald Trump associates conspired with Russia's 2016 election interference.Nearly a year later, however, it is clear that Barr has not moved on from the investigation at all. Rather, he increasingly appears to be chiseling away at it.The attorney general's handling of the results of the Russia inquiry came under fire when a federal judge questioned this week whether Barr had sought to create a "one-sided narrative" clearing Trump of misconduct. The judge said Barr displayed a "lack of candor" in remarks that helped shape the public view of the special counsel's report before it was released in April.In fact, Barr's comments then were but the first in a series of actions in which he cast doubt not just on the findings of the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and some of the resulting prosecutions, but on its very premise. In the process, Barr demoralized some of the department's rank and file and lent credence to Republican politicians who seek to elevate the Mueller investigation into an election-year political issue -- including Trump."I'm deeply troubled by what I've been seeing with Barr's stewardship of the Justice Department," said Nancy Baker, a scholar of attorneys general who studied Barr's first stint in the post under President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s. At the very least, she said, he has created the appearance that he does not "respect the long-standing norms of departmental independence."Some of Barr's defenders insist that he is suffering from a situation beyond his control: namely, a president whose running commentary on criminal cases he has an interest in has sowed suspicion about the attorney general's motives. In a ruling Thursday in a Freedom of Information Act case over the Mueller report, Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District for the District of Columbia questioned whether Barr had redacted portions of the Mueller report in order to protect the president.The department's spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, said Friday that "the court's assertions were contrary to the facts" and that Mueller's team helped the attorney general decide what information should be kept out of public view.Nonetheless, the judge's criticism reinforced the impression that Barr has been on a mission to undercut the Mueller inquiry. In ever stronger terms, Barr has implied that Mueller was appointed in 2017 only because FBI officials rushed without reason to escalate their suspicions about the Trump campaign into a full-blown investigation.The Justice Department's own inspector general rejected that premise late last year, finding that the bureau's decision was justified by the facts. But Barr has assigned a federal prosecutor to investigate the matter further and has suggested that the inquiry might conclude that the FBI acted in bad faith. Investigators are also said to be examining the intelligence agencies' assessment that President Vladimir Putin of Russia interfered in the American presidential race on behalf of Trump.Last month, Barr appointed another outside prosecutor to review a case that Mueller brought against the president's former national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI. And in a second case that the Mueller team brought against Roger Stone, Trump's longtime friend, the attorney general overruled career prosecutors to seek a more lenient prison sentence, triggering a chain of events that the federal judge overseeing the case called "unprecedented."In those and other instances, Barr has never mentioned Mueller by name. But he has increasingly sided with the view of Trump and his allies that the special counsel's inquiry was baseless. As Barr put it succinctly in a December interview with NBC News, "Our nation was turned on its head for three years, I think, based on a completely bogus narrative."He has implicitly criticized both John Brennan, the CIA director under President Barack Obama, and James Comey, who Trump fired as FBI director in 2017, for actions related to the Russia inquiry. Noting that Brennan twice warned the Russian government not to interfere in the 2016 election, Barr said it was "inexplicable" no one warned the Trump campaign that the Russians had targeted it.He also said Comey refused to take the necessary security clearance steps that would have enabled him to cooperate fully with Michael Horowitz, the department's inspector general, in his review of aspects of the Russia investigation. But he noted that John Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut who is separately investigating the origins of the Russia inquiry, has the power to compel testimony. "A decision has to be made about motivations," he said.The president's allies are eager to draw Barr more publicly to their side. At an expected upcoming oversight hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who chairs the panel, is likely to question Barr about whether he believes the Mueller inquiry was necessary or justified.Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., another staunch defender of the president, has promised to ask the Justice Department to open a criminal inquiry into whether the special counsel's office mishandled the prosecution of George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.Both Barr's critics and defenders are carefully watching the Flynn case for signs that Barr is backing away from what had been an aggressive prosecution initiated by Mueller and inherited by the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. More than two years after he pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government, Flynn reversed himself and asked to withdraw his plea. He claimed prosecutors had deceived him -- accusations that the judge overseeing the case has firmly rejected.Once Flynn recanted, prosecutors stiffened their sentencing recommendation, saying Flynn deserved up to six months in prison. But in January, they seemed to soften that stance, saying that probation was also "reasonable."Outside prosecutors have now been assigned to review the Flynn prosecution, along with other politically sensitive national security cases -- a level of second-guessing that has disturbed federal prosecutors in the Washington office and elsewhere.Even some of Barr's defenders acknowledge that the sentencing of Stone, a former campaign adviser to Trump, turned into a debacle for the department. Barr overruled the sentencing recommendation of four career prosecutors after Trump wrote on Twitter that Stone was being treated too harshly.The prosecutors withdrew from the case in protest. Faced with a backlash in his department, Barr asked the president on national television to quit commenting on the department's criminal cases, and associates suggested he was on the verge of resigning. But when Trump ignored him, Barr stayed put.While Barr insisted he made his decision about Stone's proper punishment based on the merits of the case, sentencing data show the move was extraordinary.A jury convicted Stone, 67, of obstructing a congressional inquiry, tampering with a witness and lying to congressional investigators. The government requested that Stone be granted leniency despite the fact that he had refused to plead guilty.That was the case in less than 2% of the nearly 75,000 criminal defendants who were sentenced in federal courts in the fiscal year that ended in September, according to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The Stone case also stands out because the government ended up seeking a lighter punishment than the federal probation office had recommended, although that recommendation was likely guided by information provided by the prosecutors who Barr overruled.Prosecutor rarely ask for leniency after a trial because it undercuts their ability to negotiate guilty pleas with other defendants, according to Douglas Berman, a professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law who specializes in sentencing issues. "They want to be able to say, and to have a defense attorney repeat to a client, that they are willing to cut a deal, but they are never going to offer this again," he said.In fact, a review by The New York Times of more than 60 federal cases in which a defendant faced at least one similar charge to Stone's turned up no instances in which the government recommended leniency after a trial. The Times reviewed cases in which defendants were sentenced after January 2017 and that were handled by two of the biggest U.S. attorneys offices: in Washington and in the central district of California.In at least nine cases, the government asked for leniency, technically called a variance from sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors typically cited other mitigating factors, including advanced age or illness, on top of a speedy guilty plea.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| People are stealing masks and other sterile supplies from hospitals and research facilities amid a global shortage Posted: 07 Mar 2020 08:03 AM PST  As demand for masks increases, they have been reported stolen from hospitals and other facilities where they are necessary, like a Harvard lab.
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| China rejects report it fired laser at US Navy plane Posted: 06 Mar 2020 06:27 PM PST  China's Defense Ministry says a report one of its navy ships fired a laser last month at a U.S. Navy surveillance plane circling overhead does not "accord with reality." The report last month was the latest accusation that Chinese forces have used lasers to harass and potentially damage U.S. and other nations' military aircraft and personnel. In China's first public comments on the alleged incident, Ren accused an American P-8A Poseidon of carrying out "long-period circling reconnaissance at low-altitude despite repeated warnings from the Chinese side."
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| Italy Locks Down Rich North as Conte Tries to Contain Panic Posted: 08 Mar 2020 12:55 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte tried to contain the alarm spreading through Europe's fourth-biggest economy, unveiling drastic measures in the middle of the night to restrict the spread of the deadly coronavirus.In a hastily convened news conference Sunday morning, the head of a government already hanging by a thread said that Italy will dramatically restrict movement and activity for a quarter of its population in the economic powerhouse that is the region around Milan.As news of the measures leaked, some Italians gave their reactions. Images and posts on social media showed people rushing to get on the last train out and escape a virtual lockdown amid some of the most sweeping anti-virus measures outside China. Schools have already been shut as tourism has ground to a halt and businesses take a hit in a country already on the brink of recession.Conte's latest effort at damage control comes as cases surged to 5,883 on Saturday with 233 deaths, and as Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of one of the two major government parties, announced he had contracted the illness.Yet the premier's late appearance, and his criticism of "unacceptable" leaks, did little to dispel concern that this was a government with a tenuous grasp of a rapidly evolving national emergency. Conte said he would take "political responsibility" for managing the crisis.Market Reaction?A key test of whether he succeeded will come Monday, when investors will assess the impact of his actions on Italy's already weakened economy.Spreads between Italian and German bonds have crept up since the coronavirus crisis erupted but have so far remained below the average of the past year. A spike in yields would put a further strain on Italy's debt just as the government prepares to widen the deficit to prop up the economy.Conte's announcement came after an early draft of the new rules did the rounds and sparked confusion. Images abounded of Italians crowding trains from Milan and the north to make their way south before restrictions came into force. Train travel between northern and southern Italy appeared normal Sunday morning.The regulations are set to come into force "within hours," Conte said. They are to last until April 3, according to the draft seen by Bloomberg. A final text is still to be published.The bans will stop anyone from entering or exiting the most-affected areas, while movement inside will be allowed only for demonstrable business or health reasons, the draft said. Skiing, public events, religious ceremonies and work meetings will be suspended, while schools, museums, swimming pools and theaters will close.Bars and restaurants will have to make sure patrons keep at least one meter apart or they'll be shut. The decree specifies that failing to respect the measures is a criminal offense, and might lead to imprisonment. Police and the army will be responsible for ensuring that containment measures are respected.Some of the affected regions began signaling their resistance on Sunday morning. The Veneto region opposes the inclusion of the Padua, Treviso and Venice provinces in the decree, according to a statement published by Ansa. Maurizio Rasero, the mayor of Asti, which is in the affected zone, called the ban "madness, a disaster we didn't expect."About 16 million people will be affected by restrictions across Lombardy and in 14 provinces around cities including Venice, Modena, Parma, Rimini and Treviso. A large part of the Piedmont region is also affected but not Turin, the regional capital and the headquarters of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV.A second decree with new containment rules for the rest of the country recommends citizens avoid travel outside their hometowns unless absolutely necessary, and restricts public events from demonstrations to theater shows.With Italy's economy already about to contract before the outbreak, the crisis has all but paralyzed business activity in Lombardy -- which accounts for a fifth of the country's gross domestic product -- and the rest of the north, Italy's economic engine.The government decided on Thursday to double emergency spending to 7.5 billion euros ($8.5 billion) to help cushion the economic impact of the virus.It's also calling up 20,000 doctors, nurses and medical personnel to help deal with the outbreak. Fallout from the virus's spread is slamming Italy's key tourism industry at a time when the country is already teetering on the brink of recession.The European Commission's top economic officials approved Italy's spending plans, saying in a letter to the government in Rome that its stimulus plans won't be factored in when assessing the country's compliance with the European Union's fiscal rules.(Updates with Veneto region reaction in 12th paragraph.)\--With assistance from Daniele Lepido, Tommaso Ebhardt, Alessandro Speciale, Sonia Sirletti and Ross Larsen.To contact the reporters on this story: Alberto Brambilla in Milan at abrambilla5@bloomberg.net;John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net;Alessandro Speciale in Rome at aspeciale@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Flavia Krause-Jackson, James AmottFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| 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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| Lori Vallow makes first Idaho court appearance since kids went missing Posted: 06 Mar 2020 05:53 PM PST  Vallow has been charged with felony child abandonment.
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| Trump impeachment: Key witness says Putin has US 'exactly where he wants us' Posted: 08 Mar 2020 08:17 AM PDT  One of the former officials who testified in the impeachment hearings against Donald Trump has warned that Vladimir Putin has the US "exactly where he wants us".Speaking to CBS's 60 Minutes in her first major interview since her testimony last year, Fiona Hill said that while the Russians did not invent the divisions in US politics and society they knew how to exploit them.
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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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| People who vape show DNA changes similar to smokers and that are linked to cancer Posted: 07 Mar 2020 12:00 AM PST  Experts spoke to Business Insider about the study, and about a common problem faced by many vaping researchers.
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| Greek villagers enlisted to catch migrants at Turkey border Posted: 07 Mar 2020 03:16 AM PST  Over the years, villagers who live near Greece's border with Turkey got used to seeing small groups of people enter their country illegally. When Turkey started channeling thousands of people to Greece, insisting that its ancient regional rival and NATO ally receive them as refugees, the Greek government sealed the border and rushed police and military reinforcements to help hold back the flood. Greeks in the border region rallied behind the expanding border force, collecting provisions and offering any possible contribution to what is seen as a national effort to stop a Turkish-spurred incursion.
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| The Desert Town That’s Home to U.S. Drones and People Smugglers Posted: 07 Mar 2020 08:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Moctar raised his right hand above his head and from an almost impossible height poured hot tea into a glass as he recounted his latest trip to Libya transporting migrants seeking to make the hazardous Mediterranean crossing to Europe.The 72-hour journey across the border from Niger to Libya was perilous, with the list of potential dangers including attacks by bandits and Islamist militants to the more mundane of crashing into sand dunes or simply running out of gas. Luckily he reached his destination.He then stuffed his Toyota Hilux with pasta, canned tomatoes, sugar, flour and cooking oil for sale back home. It was one of dozens of such excursions Moctar, 30, has made over the years from Agadez, a sprawling cluster of low, sand-colored compounds huddling in the desert of northern Niger. Now it's also the front line of both Europe's anti-migration efforts and the fight by U.S., French and African forces against the spread of Islamist militancy. Increasingly, Moctar, who is not being identified in full because of the nature of his work, and other smugglers are finding times tough because of the crackdown on trafficking by the Nigerien authorities in cooperation with European nations. Sometimes he turns to smuggling the opioid tramadol, which is popular in neighboring Nigeria."The trafficking of migrants continues, the only difference is now sometimes I fill up the car with drugs, mostly tramadol, when I can't find enough migrants," he said. "If you're taking the risk of breaking the law, there's no point holding back. You might as well go big, at least that'll make it worth the risk." Agadez's role as a hub for trans-Saharan trade dates back centuries — from salt caravans in the 15th century to illicit convoys of migrants."People here live off migrants, it's how we feed our families," said 38-year-old Andre, who's been driving migrants from Agadez, a city of about 100,000 people, to southern Libya since 2007, but these days struggles to find work. "The authorities treat us like criminals when we are just trying to do our job. I know at least two dozen people who have become bandits for lack of work."Today Agadez is playing a new role in the region as home to Air Base 201, where American forces target insurgents affiliated to al-Qaeda and Islamic State in cooperation with the French military throughout the Sahel, an arid area on the southern fringe of the Sahara. The expanded U.S. profile in the region was highlighted in 2017 when four American soldiers died in an ambush in Niger."With Mali and Burkina Faso having lost control of large swaths of territory and the presence of the jihadists' bases, the risk is that they link battlefields across the Sahel," said Frank Van der Mueren, head of the European Union's civilian capacity-building mission in Niger, known as EUCAP Sahel Niger. Niger is now seen by the Europeans as a strategic partner and a "lock on the door'' for security in the Sahel, he said. The Nigerien authorities passed a law in 2015 that made trafficking in migrants a criminal offense and reinforced border patrols. A quarter of the 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in aid the EU has provided Niger over the 2017-20 period has gone to policies to curb migration. The Nigerien measure followed an agreement between African and European leaders to a common approach to address the root causes of migration amid a surge of arrivals by sea and on land at the EU's external borders, with more than 1 million asylum seekers and migrants trying to reach EU member states that year. In 2018, the EU border control authority Frontex opened its first Risk Analysis Cell on the continent in Niger's capital, Niamey, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) southwest of Agadez.The efforts appear to be working. In 2018, illegal crossings on the Niger route plunged by 80% to 23,000, the lowest number since 2012, according to Frontex.At the same time, migration has now picked up along a western route through Morocco, and prompted smugglers to forge new, more dangerous routes through its eastern neighbor Chad, the European Council on Foreign Relations said in an October 2019 policy brief.And some of Niger's tougher measures on migration have fueled concerns that they're worsening security."The largely military approach has pushed the traffic underground and reinforced criminal networks, including the militias in Libya and some terrorist groups," said Mohamed Anacko, the president of Agadez's regional council.Competition over drug trafficking routes between ethnic militias in the tri-border area between Niger, Chad and Libya further risks destabilizing northern Niger."The situation in Libya boosts the development of transnational border crime and the circulation of arms that reinforces the armed actors and feeds into the conflicts across the Sahel," said Niger's interior minister, Mohamed Bazoum. "The conflict in Libya is fuel on the fire."The exploration of new gold deposits and oil with the construction of a $5 billion oil pipeline by the China National Petroleum Corp., from the Agadem fields in northeastern Niger, brings its own risks. Small-scale gold mining is an increasingly important source of revenue for jihadists operating in the Sahel, including Niger.In northern Niger, most people live off farming, construction work, seasonal migration to Libya and the migrants who still pass though. At one point, young men left to fight with the rebels in Libya, until the spread of Islamic State made the situation there too dangerous.Until 2015, migration-related activities contributed as much as $100 million per year to the regional economy around Agadez, according to the International Crisis Group, citing local authorities in a recent report. At one point, the industry was estimated to support more than half of the households in the town.Authorities managed local conflicts by turning a blind eye to former ethnic Tuareg rebels-turned-smugglers running unofficial travel agencies and moving people, gold, drugs and pasta across the desert. Travel agents made as much as $5,000 a week, employing drivers, cooks, guards and coaxers who picked up migrants from bus stops and brought them to so-called ghettos, or migrant housing, in town.Today, they've seen their revenue dwindles.Dealing with illegal migration by banning the movement of contraband goods and people could be counter-productive, said William Assanvo, an analyst with the Institute for Security Studies in Dakar, Senegal."In some areas, contraband and illicit activities is simply the way in which people are making an income and how the economy is structured," Assanvo said.The U.S. drone base hasn't been much help, either. For a few months in 2017, Agadez residents were bused to the base to help elongate the airstrip for the armed drones that started taking off last year. When that was done, the offers of work quickly dried up."First, the tourists stopped coming," said Surajh Rabiou, a craftsman selling jewelry and wooden carvings near the town's mosque. "Then Europe decided to shut down migration, so we lost that income too. Now the American troops are here, but they don't buy my jewelry like the tourists used to do."\--With assistance from Pauline Bax and Jeremy Diamond.To contact the author of this story: Katarina Hoije in Accra at khoije@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Karl Maier at kmaier2@bloomberg.net, Paul RichardsonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Grand Princess cruise ship passengers bound for coronavirus quarantine in California, elsewhere Posted: 08 Mar 2020 12:33 AM PST  The cruise ship Grand Princess, whose guests have been largely confined to their staterooms since Thursday, is due to arrive at the Port of Oakland on Monday to begin immediately disgorging its 2,400 passengers, California Governor Gavin Newsom told a news conference. Nearly all 1,100 crew members will remain on board the vessel, which will depart Oakland as soon as possible following removal of the passengers and sail for an as-yet undetermined location outside San Francisco Bay for the duration of their two-week quarantine, he said.
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| Ted Cruz to self-quarantine after contact with man infected by coronavirus Posted: 08 Mar 2020 05:04 PM PDT  The Texas senator said he would stay home for 14 days after interacting with the infected person at the recent CPAC conference in Maryland.
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| Coronavirus has sparked a perfect storm of nationalism and financial speculation Posted: 07 Mar 2020 10:45 PM PST  Wall Street could recover before coronavirus subsides – but the global economy won't be the sameNationalism and speculation have seldom had a better opportunity to combine forces as the one riding today on the coattails of Covid-19, known as the coronavirus.When Covid-19 leapfrogged from China to Italy, even ardent Europeanists normally appreciative of open borders joined the deafening calls to end freedom of movement across Europe's national borders – a longstanding demand of nationalists. Meanwhile, the money men speculating on government debt are performing a classic flight from Italian to German government bonds, seeking the financial safety that only the continent's hegemon can offer during any crisis. As if in a bid to remind us of the great contradiction of our times, Covid-19 is illuminating gloriously the freedom of money to transcend a borderless financial universe while humans remain as fenced in as ever.Meanwhile in the United States, President Trump is combining his standard call for taller walls with a fresh instruction to moneymen to "buy the dip" in Wall Street, rather than to follow their natural instinct to seek refuge in the boring but safe bond markets. A great deal will depend on whether financiers believe Mr Trump or not, and not just because this is an election year.If speculators do believe the American president, Wall Street will recover swiftly even before the epidemic subsides. The forces of xenophobic financialisation will then have triumphed and America's progressives will face an uphill struggle on every political front. As for the European Union, ruling elites will breathe a sigh of relief that a new depression was avoided and return to managing as best as they can the economic stagnation of recent times, tinged this time with a large dose of additional, coronavirus-reinforced, xenophobia.> Speculators will make a mint and nationalist forces will milk the ensuing discontent for all its worthWill Wall Street follow Mr Trump's advice to "buy the dip"? For now, the large players are in two minds. The drop in the stock market does not worry them as such. Their concern is that the recent bull market was running on increasingly suspect debt and that Covid-19 may have pricked a bubble that was going to burst anyway. Similarly in Europe, the worst spectre hovering over investors' heads is that large corporations, relying for too long on free money from the European Central Bank, may be downgraded from investment to junk-grade – especially so at a time of stagnant domestic demand and a collapsed Chinese import market.Taking a leaf out of the aftermath of the crash of 2008, and the Eurozone crisis that followed, bullish speculators are looking at their central banks, primarily the Fed and the ECB, to do, once again, "whatever it takes" to re-float their flagging fortunes. Two questions keep them up at night: will the central banks oblige? And if they do, will it be enough?The first question is easy to answer: governments are impotent on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States the federal budget deficit is already at a historic high, especially in the context of a tight labour market, while the Eurozone remains in the straightjacket of its fiscal compact. Therefore the central banks will be forced, whether they like it or not, to step up to the mark. Already we have seen announcements of lower interest rates, even of Japanese-style semi-direct purchases of government and private debt by the monetary authorities.But will it be enough for the central banks to throw more money at the Covid-19-infected money markets? Will the economy go back to where we were a month ago if enough liquidity is pumped into the system? Or will it resemble a slow puncture that demands increasing pump-priming to stay inflated? Moreover, will the new wall of public money push back the wall of xenophobia? The sad answer to the last question is instructive about the economic ones too.When a border closes down, it does not open again easily even if the conditions that caused its closure are largely reversed. This is a safe lesson from Europe's recent experience. Take, for example, Austria, which closed its border with Italy following the rise of refugee arrivals in the summer of 2015. For a couple of years after that refugee wave had died out, the borders remained shut. Similarly with the borders along the Western Balkans. Why is this relevant to the question of whether increased central bank liquidity will ameliorate the effects of Covid-19 on the economy? To answer, we need to remind ourselves of what happened after the crash of 2008.There were two responses to the 2008 crisis that saved capitalism from total collapse: the gigantic injection of liquidity into the economy by central banks, the Fed above all else; and China, whose government took it upon itself intentionally to build up the greatest private credit bubble in history to replace the lost export demand by a stupendous investment boost. The Fed's and China's intervention succeeded in re-floating global finance and putting stock markets onto the path of their longest growth spurt. However, the world did not go back to its pre-2008 ways.Before 2008, Wall Street played a crucial role in recycling non-US surpluses that were the repercussion of American deficits into global investment funding. After 2008, the refloated Wall Street could not perform that task, channelling much of the abundant liquidity not to fixed capital investment but to share buy-backs and other asset purchases. The result was that the post-2008 economy is characterised by savings being permanently in excess of capital goods investment. Since savings are the supply of money and investment its demand, the permanent excess supply of money explains the permanently low, or negative, interest rates. It also explains the downward pressure on median wages against a background of rising asset prices causing unbearable inequality and thus producing the political triumphs of xenophobic nationalism.In precisely the same way that the increased liquidity after 2008 failed to rebalance savings and investment globally, so will any renewed monetary "easing" to counter the ill effects of Covid-19 fail to return the global economy to its pre-February state. Of course, as happened after 2008, speculators will make a mint and nationalist forces will milk the ensuing discontent for all its worth.
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| The (rare) travel upside to coronavirus? You might have a swankier plane on your spring flight Posted: 07 Mar 2020 12:00 PM PST  The airplane shuffle is happening across the country due to steep international flight cuts by U.S. airlines amid the coronavirus outbreak.
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| How the coronavirus outbreak could help fuel China's dystopian surveillance system Posted: 07 Mar 2020 02:30 AM PST  Authorities have used invasive surveillance techniques to monitor citizens to try to stem the epidemic. Experts fear this could be the new normal.
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| AP sources: Inmate fatally beaten at US prison in Illinois Posted: 06 Mar 2020 07:06 PM PST |
| Italy to quarantine millions around Venice and Milan Posted: 07 Mar 2020 02:33 PM PST  Italy prepared Saturday to quarantine more than 10 million people around the financial capital Milan and the tourist mecca Venice for nearly a month to halt the spread of the new coronavirus. A draft government decree published by Italy's Corriere Della Sera newspaper and other media said movement into and out of the regions would be severely restricted until April 3. Corriere Della Sera said it was "imminent" -- and that those who violated the measures could be jailed.
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| Duterte Won’t Ban China-Centric Casinos Linked to Illicit Funds Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:46 AM PDT |
| Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson endorses Bernie Sanders Posted: 07 Mar 2020 05:18 PM PST  Jackson will appear alongside Sanders in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Sunday.
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| Taliban say parallel presidential ceremonies threatens progress on peace talks Posted: 08 Mar 2020 08:55 AM PDT  The Taliban militant group said peace talks with the Afghan government next week were unlikely to take place because rivals for the presidency were both holding swearing-in ceremonies on Monday, and urged them instead to focus on an end to the war. The United States is trying to push the government toward talks with the Taliban, due to start on begin on Tuesday, under an agreement signed in Doha last month. In February, Afghanistan's Electoral Commission announced incumbent Ashraf Ghani as the winner of September's presidential election, but his bitter rival Abdullah Abdullah said he and his allies had won and insisted that he would form a government.
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| 21 People Onboard Grand Princess Cruise Ship Test Positive for Coronavirus Posted: 07 Mar 2020 11:07 AM PST  Twenty-one people aboard a mammoth cruise ship off the California coast tested positive for the new coronavirus, including 19 crew members, Vice President Mike Pence announced Friday
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