| Wisconsin mother, two daughters found dead after Amber Alert issued; boyfriend arrested Posted: 16 Feb 2020 04:30 PM PST  A mother and two daughters were found dead after an Amber Alert was issued Saturday.
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| USS Arizona crew member, Pearl Harbor survivor dies age 97 Posted: 16 Feb 2020 02:36 PM PST |
| Germany wants another crack at a EU mission in the Strait of Hormuz Posted: 15 Feb 2020 10:25 AM PST  Berlin last summer rejected a request to join a U.S.-led naval protection mission for fear of getting tangled up in shooting war between the United States and Iran.
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| Inside the Family's Manhattan Apartment Posted: 16 Feb 2020 05:00 AM PST |
| Judge sets Tuesday phone hearing in Roger Stone case Posted: 16 Feb 2020 12:57 PM PST  The court session would be the first since prosecutors abruptly quit last week
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| France warns of bloody Brexit talks battle Posted: 15 Feb 2020 04:25 PM PST  France on Sunday warned Britain to expect a bitter, bloody battle in Brexit trade talks with the EU, saying the two sides would "rip each other apart". Negotiations for a deal on future EU-UK relations are not due to start until next month, but London and Brussels have already clashed over rules for British financial firms' access to the EU after Brexit. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian said it would be tough to achieve Britain's aim of agreeing a free trade deal by the end of the year, with the two sides far apart on a range of issues.
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| Man who left puppy to drown in cage sentenced to 1 year for animal cruelty Posted: 16 Feb 2020 07:57 AM PST  The 36-year-old New Jersey man left the puppy in a cage along the rising tide of Sandy Hook Bay after a fight with his ex-girlfriend.
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| Mark Zuckerberg admits Facebook was ‘slow to understand’ election interference Posted: 15 Feb 2020 12:04 PM PST  Facebook is taking down more than a million fake accounts a day to counter a massive upsurge in malicious material in the web, Mark Zuckerberg told an international security forum, and disclosed that more than 50 information operations aimed at elections have been uncovered since the 2016 US presidential race.There are continuing investigations into claims that Donald Trump was the Muscovian candidate at the election and a Kremlin campaign, including a disinformation drive, helped put him in the White House.
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| Over 6,000 bodies found in Burundi's mass graves Posted: 15 Feb 2020 05:19 AM PST  The commission chairman Pierre Claver Ndayicariye told journalists on Friday that the remains of 6,032 victims as well as thousands of bullets were recovered. The tiny East African nation is struggling to come to terms with a violent past, characterized by suffered colonial occupation, civil war and decades of intermittent massacres. Burundi's population is divided between the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups.
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| US evacuates Diamond Princess cruise passengers; 40 Americans on board test positive for coronavirus Posted: 16 Feb 2020 03:51 PM PST  While the U.S. evacuates American passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, a passenger who chose to remain on board shares an inside look.
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| Coronavirus panic could be the endangered pangolin's new threat Posted: 14 Feb 2020 08:30 PM PST  Bill Zeigler, a top researcher at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, shared his concerns.
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| Why Joe Biden needs ‘a political miracle’ to stay in the race to face Trump Posted: 15 Feb 2020 11:00 PM PST  Barack Obama's vice-president is floundering in the Democratic primary, losing key support as vital votes loomLarry Sabato is an analyst, author and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. His students are currently embedded in various presidential campaigns. Two were working for Joe Biden in Iowa. Before caucus day, they texted Sabato to say they expected to lose badly.Sabato asked why. The answer: "No energy at all."And so it proved. Biden, who was Barack Obama's righthand man for eight years and long the Democrats' national frontrunner to take on Donald Trump, trailed in fourth. A week later, he fled New Hampshire before the votes were even counted, to escape the public humiliation of finishing fifth.Now, in the words of one commentator, Biden "needs a miracle" to stay in the race. A man whose candidacy a year ago seemed to be predicated on his appeal to the white working class is depending on African American voters to rescue him from the oft-quoted maxim that all political lives end in failure. What went wrong?"I've watched Joe Biden since he was first elected [to the Senate] in 1972," Sabato said. "He was full of energy and joking around and had a big personality but I don't think anyone has associated the word 'vision' with Joe Biden. Democrats are looking for a vision; Biden's vision is to go back to Obama's policies. I understand it, but it doesn't get you standing up and cheering."The 77-year-old's debate performances have failed to inspire and his rallies have drawn small crowds. His rally in Des Moines on the eve of the Iowa caucuses was in a more compact venue than Pete Buttigieg's across the city and, while delivering a heartfelt critique of Trump, offered fewer policy specifics and generated less electricity.Sabato added: "People are charged up and incensed about Trump. But if you're standing there talking and they go to sleep, it doesn't suggest you're the best one to beat Trump. People keep saying he's lost a step or two but this is the same Joe Biden I remember from the 1970s. He's a meanderer. Some speakers get you fired up but Joe's not that."> In Iowa I saw one of the most inferior ground games in politics. I have never seen anything so inept> > Moe VelaThere is a distinct whiff of déja vu. Biden's first run for president fell apart in 1987 when he quoted British politician Neil Kinnock but forgot to credit him, prompting charges of plagiarism. His second attempt went off the rails in 2007 when he described Obama as "the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy". (His third-place finish in his home state, Delaware, remains his best performance in a primary.)The 2020 effort was meant to be different story with Biden, who served with distinction as Obama's vice-president, cast as the antidote to Trump and restorer of normalcy. But he was poleaxed by Senator Kamala Harris of California in the first Democratic debate in June, when she challenged his past views on desegregated school busing.He fared little better in a debate in September when, asked about what responsibility Americans have to repair the legacy of slavery, he gave a rambling answer that included "make sure you have the record player on at night, make sure that kids hear words, a kid coming from a very poor school, a very poor background, will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time we get there."Debates came and went. Trump's attacks on Biden's son, Hunter, over his business dealings in Ukraine generated media scrutiny, both fair and unfair, that in some minds may have planted seeds of doubt. In Iowa it was clear the Obama magic, which swept the caucuses in 2008, had not rubbed off on his running mate. The blame seemed to lie with both an underwhelming candidate and a poorly organised campaign.Moe Vela, who was director of administration and senior adviser to Biden at the White House, said: "In Iowa I saw one of the most inferior ground games in politics. I have never seen anything so inept. He's not being served properly by his campaign."Vela, now an LGBTQ and Latino activist and board director at TransparentBusiness, added: "He had been the front runner for so long that I think the campaign staff became complacent. You got a sense they were so busy talking about electability and pitting him against Trump they forgot they have to deal with these 15 people first. You could see this rude awakening in Iowa as the night was slipping away."In New Hampshire, where Biden called a student a "lying dog faced pony soldier", he fared even worse. A comeback win in Nevada looks unlikely, setting up a potential last stand in South Carolina, the first contest in a state with a significant African American population – a constituency where he has consistently polled strongly. (Biden has been at pains to point out that 99% of the African American population have not yet had a say.)But even this advantage appears to have been eroded by Senator Bernie Sanders and billionaire Tom Steyer. Then comes Super Tuesday, where another billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, has spent nearly $350m on ads focused on the 16 states and territories that vote, eating into Biden's support among moderates and African Americans. Several black members of Congress and city mayors have endorsed Bloomberg despite the discriminatory "stop-and-frisk" policy he supported as mayor of New York.Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), said: "Biden has lost half the black support that he had. It's bled off and is now largely with Mike Bloomberg. Some of it has gone to Bernie Sanders, a little bit maybe to Elizabeth Warren, none of it to Pete Buttigieg. So he's sitting there holding 22, 23% of the black vote now. Mike Bloomberg is behind them at what, 21?"Clearly whatever the decision-making process was that led them to run the first leg of this race the way they have has cost him dearly. They have to make up a lot of ground in a very short period of time. When you swing into Super Tuesday, you've got to have bankroll." 'If you're saying you're a winner, you'd better win'Is there still time to turn it around? Yes, but it will be an uphill struggle. Since 1972, no candidate from either party has finished below second in both Iowa and New Hampshire and won the nomination.Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist who was an adviser to the Al Gore and John Kerry presidential campaigns, said: "For him to recover from this would be a political miracle unlike anything we've seen in modern presidential politics. I don't think it's impossible but it's unlikely and would fly in the face of all our knowledge of political history."Biden's main pitch had been that in this moment of national emergency, he was the steady hand best placed to prevent Trump winning a second term. To centrists, he would be less of a gamble than progressives Sanders or Warren. But after the heavy losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, he is caught in his own electability trap.Shrum, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, said: "The centrepiece of the campaign was, 'I'm going to beat Trump like a drum'. The public said, 'If you're saying you're a winner, you'd better win'.""Al Gore had this line: elections are not a reward for past performance. I think they are always about the future, not just the past. In Democratic primaries, you've got to have a future offer to people, no matter how dissatisfied they are with the Republican incumbent. Joe Biden has a lot of policies on his website but that's not what comes over on the debate stage."> There's still to recover but if he's not willing to restructure his campaign, I don't think he can bounce back> > Coby OwensIn a small but telling measure of a campaign in a downward spiral, Biden's press team did not respond to multiple phone and email requests from the Guardian seeking comment. The Trump, Bloomberg and other campaigns are generally far more responsive.Shrum added: "I suspect they have many pressures and I have nothing but sympathy for the candidate and the people around him. It's hard to start at the top of the mountain and end up in the valley."Biden's struggles have dismayed supporters in his home state, where he remains immensely popular. Coby Owens, a local civil rights activist whose family has known Biden for years, and who is still trying to decide between Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, said: "There are a lot of people who are shocked and concerned about it and want to know what's going on."They have been hearing the message that he's the most electable so they thought he was going to cruise through the first two states, which are predominantly white. There's still a lot of room left for him to recover but if he's not willing to restructure his campaign, I don't think he can bounce back." 'Telltale signs'Biden has frequently referenced his partnership with Obama but America's first black president has remained notably silent.Obama reportedly discouraged Biden from running in 2016 because he believed Hillary Clinton had a better chance of winning. This time, rumour has it that he nudged Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, to make a late bid because again he was dubious about Biden's viability (Patrick dropped out after a poor showing in New Hampshire).Steele, the ex-RNC chairman and former lieutenant-governor of Maryland, commented: "The telltale signs were there: the lack of interest that Barack had in the Biden campaign, the fact that the word on the street was that Deval Patrick was in the race was because Obama encouraged him to get in the race. Why would you do that with your vice-president already in the game?"While cautious about writing Biden off just yet, Steele added: "For me, just watching the Biden campaign, I get the sense that he's kind of walked through it. I think he's going through the paces of it. I'm not convinced at this stage that he really wants it any more. I don't think you take the front runner status that he's held for over a year, anchored by 50% of the black vote in a party where that is a very important and huge demographic edge, and just leave it on the table."I've never seen a candidate do that the way it's been done. Maybe there's a little bit of hubris and you assume that you've got the weight to throw around to win this thing. But then again, at the same time, I think at a certain point the gas is out of the tank and you just sleepwalk your way through it."
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| Assistant principal accused of raping student avoids jail Posted: 15 Feb 2020 07:28 AM PST  An assistant principal charged with raping a 16-year-old student in Missouri has avoided jail time by accepting an Alford plea, which allows her to assert innocence while acknowledging the evidence proves her guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
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| Remember When Iran Took Out Saddam Hussein's Navy In One Day—With American-Made Jets? Posted: 15 Feb 2020 10:00 PM PST  One of the most intense air battles since World War II.
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| Searchers recover bodies of 2 killed in Colorado avalanche Posted: 16 Feb 2020 11:17 AM PST |
| 'Housing is not the end': Former homeless struggle to adapt Posted: 16 Feb 2020 02:00 AM PST  "There needs to be continued support," one woman said.
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| Questions over fate of Saudi crew in Yemen jet crash Posted: 16 Feb 2020 03:18 AM PST  The fate of the crew of a Saudi warplane that crashed in Yemen remained uncertain Sunday after Iran-linked Huthi rebels claimed to have shot down the aircraft. The Riyadh-led military coalition fighting the rebels said the two officers ejected from the plane before it crashed in northern Al-Jawf province Friday but that the rebels opened fire at them "in violation of international humanitarian law". "The joint forces command of the Coalition holds the terrorist Huthi militia responsible for the lives and wellbeing of the Tornado air crew," the coalition said in a statement released by the official Saudi Press Agency late Saturday.
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| Costa Rican police find six tonnes of cocaine in biggest ever haul Posted: 16 Feb 2020 07:15 AM PST  Police in Costa Rica have found almost 6 tonnes of cocaine in a shipping container, leading to the country's biggest ever drug seizure.The drugs, which weighed 5,800kg, were discovered on Friday evening in Limón in a container of flowers due to be sent to Rotterdam, Holland, according to the Costan Rican national newspaper La Nación.
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| Democratic rivals tell billionaire Bloomberg: Let's debate Posted: 16 Feb 2020 08:26 AM PST  U.S. Democratic presidential candidates said on Sunday billionaire Michael Bloomberg should face the same rigorous scrutiny as his rivals and they would welcome the chance to square off with him in a 2020 presidential debate. Bloomberg, a media mogul and former New York City mayor, has vastly outspent other Democratic candidates in campaign advertisements. Former Vice President Joe Biden said he would challenge Bloomberg over his mayoral record, specifically his support for a policing strategy known as "stop and frisk" that was criticized for ensnaring disproportionate numbers of blacks and Latinos.
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| An invasion of propaganda: Experts warn that white supremacist messages are seeping into mainstream Posted: 16 Feb 2020 11:06 AM PST  White supremacy propaganda is on the rise, and experts say mainstreaming of that ideology contributes to acts of domestic terrorism.
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| Barr Just Cost the Justice Department Its Prized Public-Corruption Fighter Posted: 16 Feb 2020 02:14 AM PST  The impact of Attorney General William Barr's intervention in the Roger Stone sentencing won't just be felt in the cases concerning President Donald Trump's allies, current and former Justice Department officials warn. It's cost the Justice Department one of its top public-corruption prosecutors at a time when public corruption is looking like a growth industry. That attorney is Jonathan Kravis. Kravis is the deputy chief of the fraud and public corruption section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, putting corruption within the federal government under his purview. Or he was until Tuesday, when Kravis resigned. The last straw for Kravis, who was part of Robert Mueller's team that convicted Roger Stone of charges including lying to Congress, was the Justice Department overruling him on the recommended length of Stone's prison sentence. Unlike his three outraged fellow prosecutors, Kravis didn't just quit the Stone case, he quit the Justice Department."It's troubling and heartbreaking to see someone as talented and dedicated as Jonathan was known to be leaving under these circumstances," said a federal prosecutor who requested anonymity during a precarious moment for the Justice Department. "His loss is all the greater given his focus on prosecuting fraud and corruption, at a time when both crimes appear to be on the march." Before joining Robert Mueller's team investigating Russian election interference and its connections to Trumpworld, Kravis, who had also served in the Justice Department's public-integrity section, scored several anti-corruption victories against high-profile targets. In 2016, he helped convict former Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Chaka Fattah on a host of charges including bribery, wire fraud and racketeering. A year earlier, he helped prosecute three aides to Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign for effectively bribing an Iowa state senator to endorse Paul ahead of the Iowa caucus. "He was probably one of the best public integrity prosecutors this country has," a former colleague, Glenn Kirschner, told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell after the Stone prosecutors quit. Kravis did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Just as important as Kravis himself is the position that he held. The public-corruption section within the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia has widespread prosecutorial authority over the federal government, as well as election activities. "In this administration, it along with SDNY [the Southern District of New York] are the two most important venues for public corruption prosecutions. It's a significant loss to that office," said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. And it comes at a time when there is no shortage of public-corruption targets. Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and a former Justice Department public-integrity line prosecutor, pointed to the president's conflicts of interests deriving from the retention of his business empire as an early signal of toleration for brazen public graft. "There's corruption at the federal government at a level we've perhaps never seen before," Bookbinder said. "Somebody like Kravis resigning under the circumstances he did, and the entire team on the Stone prosecution withdrawing, is pretty clearly a protest that these line prosecutors believe DOJ was interfering for political reasons." The Justice Department has spent all week denying the allegation. Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, said Kravis' departure was "bad for the nation," but considered its broader importance to be what it augurs for the independence of the Justice Department. "In light of Barr's change in the sentence recommendation for Stone, after Trump voiced his displeasure, this norm can no longer be assumed," Gillers said. "That reality will discourage not only lawyers now working at DOJ from remaining, but also discourage good applicants who do not want to join a Department where their decisions may be subject to political interference." "When someone like Jonathan Kravis leaves the office," said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, "that means he will be replaced by someone hired by the new U.S. attorney, Timothy Shea, whose conduct today does not instill a lot of confidence in his integrity, in contrast to Jonathan Kravis, whose conduct is consistent with the best traditions of the independence of the Department of Justice." (Shea is a former Barr aide whom Barr recently installed as acting U.S. attorney for D.C.)CREW's Bookbinder added that losing respected public-corruption prosecutors poses a unique challenge. Their high-profile, politically powerful targets frequently argue in court that the prosecutors themselves are corrupt. "You really need people with expertise and credibility who can come in and do those cases and not have anyone question what their agenda is," Bookbinder said.Bill Barr Is the Most Dangerous Man in AmericaBut instead, said Joshua Geltzer, a former Justice Department national-security official, "you're seeing more people leave who dislike Trump and more [loyalists] coming in. Trump brought such a politicized, polarized vision about who runs the executive branch that his effect on those leaving and entering the federal workforce is more dramatic than previous presidents." After Senate Republicans saved Trump from impeachment, the president and his allies accelerated their efforts at making Main Justice an adjunct of the White House. In addition to the Stone sentencing reversal, Barr is now undercutting Mueller's guilty plea from former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, for lying to the FBI. Former acting attorney general Sally Yates, whom Trump fired after she warned that Flynn was a counterintelligence liability, wrote in The Washington Post on Friday that the president was using the Justice Department for "retribution or camouflage.""The president has made it clear that his insistence on loyalty includes loyalty from the institutions that administer criminal justice, including DOJ and the FBI," said NYU's Gellers. "You might say without exaggeration that Trump wants personal loyalty from the rule of law itself."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Trump blames border wall falling over on 'big winds' Posted: 16 Feb 2020 11:41 AM PST  President Trump has blamed reports about a section of his border wall falling over on the "Fake News," claiming in a tweet the part of the wall fell due to "big winds" and had since been fixed "forever."
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| Hitler's Submarines Almost Launched A Missile Attack On America Posted: 16 Feb 2020 04:00 AM PST  In March, the Allies intercepted a message from German Admiral Godt dispatching seven Type IX long-range submarines to "attack targets in American coastal zone" as part of an attack group awesomely codenamed Seewolf.
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| Israeli army: Hamas hackers tried to 'seduce' soldiers Posted: 16 Feb 2020 02:05 AM PST  The Israeli military on Sunday said it has thwarted an attempt by the Hamas militant group to hack soldiers' phones by posing as young, attractive women on social media, striking up friendships and persuading them into downloading malware. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters that the phones of dozens of soldiers had been infected in recent months, although he said the army detected the scam early on and prevented any major secrets from reaching the Islamic militant group. Conricus said this was the third attempt by Hamas to target male soldiers through fake social media accounts, most recently in July 2018.
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| Chinese president says he took early action against COVID-19 Posted: 15 Feb 2020 08:36 PM PST  The disclosure came after Chinese leadership was criticized for slow and muted reaction to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
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| India women facing sedition charges over school play get bail Posted: 16 Feb 2020 03:22 AM PST  Two women held for two weeks by Indian police on sedition charges over a school play which allegedly criticised a contentious citizenship law have been granted bail, officials said Sunday. Teacher Fareeda Begum, 50, and parent Nazbunnisa, 36, were arrested on January 30 for helping the children stage the play at Shaheen Public School in Karnataka state. The play depicted a worried family talking about how they feared the government would ask millions of Muslims to prove their nationality or be expelled from India.
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| 'Animals live for man': China's appetite for wildlife likely to survive virus Posted: 16 Feb 2020 03:17 PM PST  HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - For the past two weeks China's police have been raiding houses, restaurants and makeshift markets across the country, arresting nearly 700 people for breaking the temporary ban on catching, selling or eating wild animals. The scale of the crackdown, which has netted almost 40,000 animals including squirrels, weasels and boars, suggests that China's taste for eating wildlife and using animal parts for medicinal purposes is not likely to disappear overnight, despite potential links to the new coronavirus. "I'd like to sell once the ban is lifted," said Gong Jian, who runs a wildlife store online and operates shops in China's autonomous Inner Mongolia region.
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| Why Xi's 'defensive' coronavirus speech could backfire Posted: 16 Feb 2020 04:30 AM PST  Chinese state media published an internal speech delivered by President Xi Jinping on Saturday in which he describes taking action on the coronavirus outbreak as early as Jan. 7.In the speech, which was given Feb. 3, Xi said he had "issued demands about the efforts to prevent and control" the virus during a meeting of the Communist Party's highest council, the Politburo Standing Committee, last month, and that he personally authorized the lockdown of the epicenter, Wuhan, beginning on Jan. 23. "I have at every moment monitored the spread of the epidemic and progress in efforts to curtail it," he said.Publishing the speech is viewed as an attempt to show Xi has been involved from the start since he's been criticized for remaining in the shadows. "The overall tone of the speech of appears to be defensive," Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, told The New York Times. "He wants to change the narrative, which until this point has been very unfavorable to the top leadership."But some analysts think it could backfire and lead to even more criticism about how the government kept the public in the dark for too long. "It seems like he's trying to indicate that 'we weren't asleep at the wheel,'" Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Times. "But it comes off like 'we knew this was a problem, but we weren't sounding the alarm.'" Read more at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's Justice Department takeover The sidelining of Elizabeth Warren Trump is getting medieval with the states
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| US embassy in Baghdad attacked with rockets Posted: 16 Feb 2020 10:29 AM PST  Rockets have dropped near the US embassy in Iraq and a military base hosting American troops, according to officials.There have been no causalities reported following the strikes, which fell amid heightened tensions in the Middle East.
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| Man gets 1 year in case of dog left in cage with tide rising Posted: 15 Feb 2020 09:18 AM PST |
| North Korea vs. South Korea: Who Wins a War Straight-Up? Posted: 16 Feb 2020 12:00 PM PST  Quality vs. quantity?
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| This creamy Tuscan chicken dinner is the cure for the Sunday blues Posted: 16 Feb 2020 05:40 AM PST  Feel a little droopy? This colorful and creamy chicken and pasta dish is the perfect pick-me-up.
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| Israel says Hamas used 'attractive' women in thwarted cyberattack Posted: 16 Feb 2020 03:46 AM PST  Israel's military said on Sunday it had thwarted an attempted malware attack by Hamas that sought to gain access to soldiers' mobile phones by using seductive pictures of young women. The phones of a few dozen soldiers were affected, but the military "does not assess that there has been a substantial breach of information", said Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an army spokesman. Conricus said this was the third attempted malware attack by Hamas in less than four years, but that the latest effort indicated the Islamist group, which controls the Gaza Strip, had improved their capacity to wage cyber-warfare.
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| Coronavirus cases rise again in China's Hubei province Posted: 16 Feb 2020 04:35 PM PST  The number of reported new cases of coronavirus in China's Hubei province rose on Monday after two days of falls, as authorities imposed tough new restrictions on movement to prevent the spread of the disease which has now killed more than 1,700 people. The tighter lockdown on the central province where the flu-like virus originated in December came as American passengers were taken off a cruise liner on Sunday to fly home after being quarantined for two weeks off Japan. Seventy new coronavirus cases were confirmed on board the Diamond Princess where 3,700 passengers and crew have been held since Feb. 3.
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| Mating snakes prompt closure of part of Florida park Posted: 16 Feb 2020 08:34 AM PST  A Florida city has shut down a section of a lake on Thursday after receiving reports of swarming snakes. The Lakeland Parks & Recreation department posted on its Facebook page that a group of nonvenomous water snakes congregated to mate near a traffic roundabout.
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| William Barr must quit over Trump-Stone scandal – former justice officials Posted: 16 Feb 2020 12:24 PM PST  * More than 1,000 public servants decry presidential interference * Aide Conway claims justice system rigged against Trump * Robert Reich: assaulting justice, Trump has out-Nixoned NixonMore than 1,000 former US justice department officials, including some of the top government lawyers in the country, have called on attorney general William Barr to resign in the wake of the Roger Stone scandal.Some 1,143 alumni of the Department of Justice posted to Medium on Sunday a group letter that tore into Barr for "doing the president's personal bidding" in imposing on prosecutors the recommendation of a reduced sentence for Stone, a longtime friend of Donald Trump who was convicted of lying to and obstructing Congress and threatening a witness in the Russia investigation.Barr, the officials said, had damaged the reputation of the department for "integrity and the rule of law".The searing letter is the latest twist in a rapidly spiraling constitutional crisis that began earlier this week when Barr imposed his new sentencing memo, slashing a seven- to nine-year proposed prison term suggested by career prosecutors. In the fallout, the four prosecutors who had handled the case resigned in disgust.The letter carries weight because its signatories are exclusively drawn from past DoJ public servants. Among them are several former US attorneys appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents and section chiefs of key elements of the justice department including its antiterrorism unit.They write that it is unheard of for top leaders of the justice department to overrule line prosecutors in order to give preferential treatment to close associates of the president. They say that amounts to political interference that is "anathema to the department's core mission and to its sacred obligation to ensure equal justice under the law".Barr's action amounted to an existential threat to the republic, the former officials say: "Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies."Barr tried to squash the perception he had been leaned on by Trump by calling on the president to stop tweeting about criminal prosecutions. He told ABC News such unrestrained comments were "making it impossible for me to do my job".But speculation continued to swirl that Barr had kowtowed to the president. Demoralisation spread rapidly through the DoJ, intensifying when it emerged that Barr has ordered outside prosecutors to re-examine criminal cases against Trump associates including former national security adviser Michael Flynn.> The president thinks Andy McCabe should have been punished because he lied and lied several times to the investigators> > Kellyanne ConwayDespite palpable distress among both serving and former officials, and multiple warnings that Trump and Barr are threatening the very rule of law, the White House has continued to inflame the situation. Trump counsellor Kellyanne Conway on Sunday claimed the president was a victim of a "two-tier criminal justice system" that was actively undermining him and his associates.Conway used Fox News Sunday to pour fuel on the fire. The truth, she claimed, was that far from making a dangerous intervention in criminal cases involving his friends and perceived enemies, Trump himself is the victim of the politicisation of the justice system."If you're President Trump or people associated with him there's prosecutions that have gone one way," Conway said, alluding to the original sentence recommended for Stone which she contrasted with the decision announced by the justice department on Friday to drop charges against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.Directly contradicting her own claim that Trump, despite his "vast powers", was not engaging in political interference in criminal cases, Conway proceeded to interfere in a criminal case. She called McCabe a "serial liar and leaker" and went on: "The president thinks that Andy McCabe should have been punished because he lied and lied several times to the investigators."McCabe, a deputy to fired FBI director James Comey and a key figure in the Russia investigation, was fired by Trump in March 2018, two days shy of retirement.The furore over Trump ignoring protocols that have kept a distance between the White House and federal prosecutors since Watergate began when the president slammed the proposed sentence for Stone as "horrible and very unfair". Hours later, Barr announced that he was imposing a reduced recommended sentence.Trump then made the constitutionally dubious claim that as president he has the "legal right" to stick his finger into any criminal case.On Saturday he duly re-entered the fray over McCabe, claiming falsely that DoJ inspector general Michael Horowitz recommended the former FBI man's firing. Horowitz referred criticisms of McCabe to prosecutors but did not recommend dismissal.On Sunday Marc Short, chief of staff to vice-president Mike Pence, made further contentious comments on CNN's State of the Union. Like Conway, he claimed without evidence that criminal justice was skewed against the president."The scales of justice aren't balanced any more," he said, "when someone like Roger Stone gets a prosecution that suggests a nine-year jail sentence and candidly someone like Andy McCabe who also lied to federal investigators gets a lucrative contract here at CNN. People say, 'How is this fair?' and that's the source of the president's frustration."The row has also become a major talking point among Democrats vying to take on Trump in November. Former vice-president Joe Biden told NBC's Meet the Press: "No one, no one, including Richard Nixon, has weaponised the Department of Justice" as much as Trump.The crisis is personal for Biden, given the efforts to coerce Ukraine into investigating him and his son Hunter which led to Trump's impeachment. Last week it was revealed that Barr has set up a channel to review information gathered in Ukraine by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani relating to the Bidens."To have a thug like Rudy Giuliani reporting to the attorney general – I mean this is, this is almost like a really bad sitcom," Biden said."Any self-respecting Republican or Democratic top-flight lawyer would have just resigned by now, in my view. It's just the things that are being done are so beyond the pale."
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| Police: 1 dead, 4 wounded in Connecticut club shooting Posted: 16 Feb 2020 01:31 AM PST  Gunfire erupted at a Connecticut nightclub early Sunday morning, killing a man and wounding four other people, police said. A 28-year-old man died in the shooting at the Majestic Lounge in Hartford's South End, police Lt. Paul Cicero said. Two other males and two females were wounded, with two of them in surgery Sunday morning and two in stable condition, he said.
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| Battle of the Bulge: Hitler Sets One Last Trap Posted: 15 Feb 2020 03:00 AM PST  Part one of a two-part series detailing one of the last big battles of World War II.
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| Winter storm barreling toward the UK is possibly the strongest ever for North Atlantic Posted: 15 Feb 2020 12:51 PM PST  The storm likely to hit Ireland, the U.K., France and northern Germany with winds gusts up to 85 mph.
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| History not forgotten: Colorado students, teacher rebuild WWII prison camp Posted: 16 Feb 2020 12:36 PM PST  Thanks to their efforts, Amache, which opened in the fall of 1942 a mile outside Granada, Colorado, is now being considered as a new national park.
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| Bush-Era Cabinet Member’s Daughter Charged With Fatally Stabbing Friend Posted: 15 Feb 2020 01:12 PM PST  The daughter of one the country's highest-ranking former diplomats has been charged with fatally stabbing an acquaintance in the neck during a late-night argument.Sophia Negroponte allegedly killed Yousuf Rasmussen, 24, inside an apartment in Rockville, Maryland just before midnight Thursday, the Montgomery County Department of Police said.The 27-year-old is the daughter of former director of national intelligence John Negroponte, the Washington Post reported.Police said Negroponte and Rasmussen had gotten into a disagreement when she attacked him. She allegedly retrieved the knife from a kitchen drawer, unsheathed it, and lunged at Rasmussen. She then allegedly removed the knife and pleaded with him not to die after the fact.The stabbing occurred late Thursday after the two had been drinking and watching television together, according to the Post. A third friend who had been with them called 911 and said the two had been arguing throughout the evening, at one point even wrestling on the floor.Negroponte acknowledged in an interview with police that their friend had not stabbed Rasmussen and that she and the victim had an altercation, according to the Post, though she told authorities she did not remember stabbing him.President George W. Bush appointed John Negroponte director of national intelligence in 2005. He was the first to hold the post. He and his wife Diana adopted five children from Honduras while stationed there in the 1980s.After Sophia's arrest Thursday, Diana Negroponte told the Post, "We love her deeply." 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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| Two British Airways executives step down following the airline's first strike in decades Posted: 16 Feb 2020 11:56 AM PST  The departures also arrive as the airline's parent firm, International Consolidated Airlines Group, transitions to a new CEO.
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| Taking migraine seriously Posted: 15 Feb 2020 10:12 PM PST  About one in seven people lives with what's ranked as the second-most debilitating disease on the planet, but experts say research into its causes and treatments is dramatically underfunded.
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