| Democratic U.S. presidential hopefuls seek contrast with Trump on immigration Posted: 27 Jan 2020 03:49 AM PST  Candidates running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination have been uniformly critical of the immigration policies of U.S. President Donald Trump, who was elected after promising to crack down on illegal immigration and bolster enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border. Here is a look at the immigration positions of Trump and the leading Democratic candidates looking to take him on in the November election. Since entering the White House in 2017, Trump has moved to end former President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children from deportation.
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| Idaho Doomsday Couple Found in Hawaii—Without Missing Kids Posted: 27 Jan 2020 09:29 AM PST  A doomsday-obsessed couple from Idaho who are at the center of several missing-child and suspicious death investigations have been found in Hawaii, police announced Monday.Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow were served with a search warrant on Sunday—but authorities did not find Vallow's children, Tylee and J.J., with them in Princeville on the island of Kauai.Daybell and Vallow got married weeks after first wife, Tammy, had died months earlier of what authorities at first listed as natural causes. They have since exhumed the 49-year-old's body to conduct an autopsy, which has not been released yet.Grandparents in Doomsday Missing Kids Case Offer $20K RewardLess than three months earlier, Vallow was widowed when her fourth husband, Charles, was shot to death by her brother in what police initially described as a self-defense situation but is now being reinvestigated.The newlyweds attracted scrutiny when extended family told police they were worried because they had not heard from Vallow's children, 17-year-old Tylee and 7-year-old J.J., who has special needs.Daybell and Vallow then skipped town. Rexburg, Idaho, police publicly pleaded with the couple to disclose the children's whereabouts but they refused to cooperate."We strongly believe that Joshua and Tylee's lives are in danger," Rexburg police said in a statement at the beginning of the month.Idaho Cops Blast Doomsday Parents of Missing KidsSo Idaho authorities initiated a child-protection action on behalf of the missing kids and obtained a court order to force Vallow to produce them within five days."We can confirm that Lori Vallow was served with that order in the city of Princeville on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, on Saturday, January 25th by the Kauai Police Department and that Chad Daybell was with her," police said in a statement."We can further confirm that Tylee and J.J. were not with Lori and Chad and there is no evidence that Tylee and J.J. were ever in Hawaii."Lori and Charles had lived in Kauai for several years before moving to Arizona.She reportedly became obsessed with Daybell's books on doomsday scenarios and near-death experiences, marketed for a Mormon audience, and bonded with the author. After Charles was killed by her brother—who later died under unknown circumstances—Lori moved to Idaho, where Daybell also lived.It's believed they got married in November, reportedly in Hawaii.If Vallow doesn't comply with the court order to produce Tylee and J.J., she could be arrested on contempt of court charges, police said.J.J.'s grandparents have offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to their return. "We truly believe and we hope and pray these kids are alive," grandfather Larry Woodcock said at a press conference earlier this month.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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| Mother of Jailed Israeli Backpacker Hopes for Russia Pardon Posted: 27 Jan 2020 02:39 AM PST ![Mother of Jailed Israeli Backpacker Hopes for Russia Pardon]( "Mother of Jailed Israeli Backpacker Hopes for Russia Pardon") (Bloomberg) -- The mother of an Israeli woman imprisoned on drug-smuggling charges in Russia said she's hopeful President Vladimir Putin will pardon her daughter.Naama Issachar, a 26-year-old U.S.-born Israeli army veteran, was sentenced in October to 7 1/2 years for carrying a small amount of hashish in her luggage on a transit flight via Moscow after a backpacking trip to India. Her plight has become a cause celebre in Israel, where it's widely seen as politically motivated.Putin met with Issachar's mother, Yaffa, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Thursday, on the sidelines of an international forum on the Holocaust. He assured her that "everything will be all right," and on Sunday, Naama Issachar applied for a presidential pardon, her lawyers said.When asked in a text message exchange whether she expects her daughter to return to Israel soon, Yaffa Issachar replied: "I hope so." The request for a pardon has been received and "all necessary legal procedures are being carried out at the moment so the president can take a decision on this issue in the nearest future," Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on a conference call Monday.A decision to free Issachar, who's been in detention since April, could bolster Netanyahu, who's been indicted on corruption charges and is fighting for his political survival at the country's third election in less than a year in March.The Kremlin said last week that Israel and Russia are also making progress in settling a dispute over the ownership of Russian Orthodox Church property in Jerusalem, which Israel's Haaretz newspaper said could form part of a quid pro quo to secure Issachar's release.The Russian leader has previously rebuffed multiple pleas from Netanyahu for Issachar's sentence to be commuted.Her case for a time became entangled with that of a Russian national, Alexei Burkov, whom Israel extradited to the U.S. in November on charges including hacking and credit card fraud. Russia had offered to swap the two, according to Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident and Israeli politician.(Adds Putin spokesman's comment in 4th paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net;Irina Reznik in Moscow at ireznik@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Tony HalpinFor 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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| Taliban says it gunned down U.S. military plane in Afghanistan, killing all personnel onboard Posted: 27 Jan 2020 08:13 AM PST  The Taliban said it had shot down a U.S. military plane in the central Afghan province of Ghazni on Monday, killing all personnel onboard.
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| US officials are testing for the new coronavirus in 26 states after 5 cases were confirmed. Here's what we know about the US patients. Posted: 27 Jan 2020 01:34 PM PST  The US's confirmed cases of the coronavirus consist of two patients in California, one in Arizona, one in Washington, and one in Illinois.
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| The history of Auschwitz-Birkenau Posted: 26 Jan 2020 08:04 PM PST  Warsaw (Poland) (AFP) - The Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau is an enduring symbol of the Holocaust.
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| Iranian passenger plane slides off runway into highway, passengers safe Posted: 27 Jan 2020 12:42 AM PST  A Caspian Airlines plane slid off the runway onto a highway on landing at an airport in southwestern Iran on Monday, but all passengers were evacuated without injury, Iranian state media reported. "It ran out of runway when landing at Mahshahr airport with no casualties," state news agency IRNA said. Some other Iranian media outlets reported 135 passengers and seven crew members were on board but there was no official confirmation.
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| America's F-35 Has Some Problems, And Iran Has Taken Notice Posted: 27 Jan 2020 10:31 AM PST  Could Iran shoot one down?
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| This Fox News poll on Trump and the economy is baffling Posted: 27 Jan 2020 03:37 AM PST  A Fox News poll released Sunday has some good news for President Trump, but if you combine it with the poll's bad news, it's not at all clear where Trump stands with the American public or how voters are feeling about the state of the union.On the positive side, 55 percent of voters said the economy is good or excellent, the highest number since 59 percent said they felt positive about the economy in January 2001 (two months before the start of the ugly 2001 recession). A 42 percent plurality of voters credit Trump and the Republicans for the economy, and Trump's job approval rating on the economy is a record 56 percent.The bad news? A 55 percent majority of voters say the way the economy works is unfair and 56 percent say they are dissatisfied with how things are going in the country, Fox News found. Trump's overall approval rating is 45 percent, with 54 percent disapproving, and he is underwater on all non-economy issues: guns (-9 percentage points), immigration (-15 points), foreign policy (-16 points), health care (-16 points), government spending (-18 points), race relations (-19 points), the environment (-22 points), even trade deals (-1 point).Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson sees the glass half full: "The president's job approval on the economy has consistently outpaced his overall job approval," and "a strong economy creates a good foundation for an incumbent seeking re-election, even if voters will also say things could always be even better or more fair." Democratic pollster Chris Anderson, whose firm conducted the Fox News poll with GOP pollster Daron Shaw, argued that Trump's approval on the economy "is tenuous ground on which to stake his re-election," because "outside the Republican base, voters think the economy under Trump doesn't work for most people."The poll was conducted Jan. 19-22 by Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Co. (R), surveying 1,005 randomly selected registered votes over the phone. The poll's overall margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.More stories from theweek.com Mike Pompeo is a disgrace Trump's lawyers attack the Bidens during impeachment trial All the president's turncoats
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| Virginia woman gets life in WVa man's decapitation death Posted: 27 Jan 2020 11:00 AM PST ![Virginia woman gets life in WVa man's decapitation death]( "Virginia woman gets life in WVa man's decapitation death") A Virginia woman was sentenced to life in prison without the chance for parole Monday in the death of a West Virginia man who was decapitated. Roena Cheryl Mills, 43, of Rural Retreat, Virginia, was sentenced for her December conviction on a first-degree murder charge in the death of Bo White, 29, of Lenore, news outlets reported. A neighbor called police after seeing Mills covered in blood.
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| Pilot Killed in Kobe Bryant Crash Remembered as ‘Dear Friend’ With Clean Safety Record Posted: 27 Jan 2020 02:41 PM PST  In the hours since a helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter crashed in Calabasas, California, on Sunday, gut-wrenching accounts have trickled out about the seven other passengers on board. Among them was 50-year-old Huntington Beach resident Ara Zobayan, the pilot of the aircraft who had a clean safety record and was attempting to travel through adverse conditions.Before Sunday's crash, the pilot and flight instructor had no prior accidents or flight incidents, according to Ian Gregor, a California spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration. Zobayan received his first private pilot license with a helicopter rating on January 21, 2001, and his commercial pilot license on December 3, 2007. But long before then, he had learned to fly at Group 3 Aviation, an intimate flight school in Van Nuys, California. According to the school's president, Claudia Lowry, Zobayan had come to the small academy in 1998—and quickly became embedded in their community. "This is where Ara learned to fly," she told The Daily Beast. "This is where Ara worked. We've known him since 1998. He's a dear friend and family."What We Know About the Helicopter That Crashed With Kobe Bryant on BoardLowry pointed to a post on Facebook, where she had posted a tribute to her friend. In the images, Zobayan, a trim man with a shaved head and light grey scruff, poses in sunglasses beside three helicopters. After learning to fly, Zobayan worked at Group 3 as a flight instructor. One of his students there, Darren Kemp, told the Los Angeles Times that Zobayan had worked as Bryant's private pilot for some time. "[Bryant] doesn't let anyone else fly him around but Ara," Kemp told the paper. As his instructor, Kemp and Zobayan had been close––the student recalled how his teacher had helped him through a difficult divorce. Zobayan later took a job as a pilot at Island Express Holding Corporation, the family-owned helicopter charter company that contracts with Catalina Island to do local tours and was listed as the owner of the vehicle that crashed Sunday. The vehicle, a Sikorsky S-76B, was nearly 30 years old at the time of the crash, having spent several years in the possession of the state of Illinois before getting sold to Island Express in 2015. Representatives for Island Express did not return requests for comment for this story.Zobayan was a licensed instrument pilot, meaning that he was trained on the safety and navigational tools needed to fly under poor weather conditions. According to Gregor at the FAA, he added an instrument rating to his private pilot license on October 20, 2007. On the day of the crash, flight conditions were poor, with ceilings as low as 300 feet, meaning that thick clouds were forming not far above the ground, and visibility above them was impossible. The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed Monday morning that the fog had grounded all of their aircraft, and an employee at a helicopter charter service that does business in the area told The Daily Beast that they had also suspended service. "It was a no fly day for us and pretty much all operators," the employee said. In recordings from Zobayan's conversations with aircraft controllers published by LiveATC.net, you can hear the pilot activating what's called "Special Visual Flight Rules," meaning that the air controllers might help him detect things he couldn't himself see. "If you listen to the audio recordings," the charter employee said, "he asked to be tracked by air traffic control—which means, I need you to track me because I'm in bad conditions."Jared Yochim, a pilot who said he worked as a Chevron contractor in Angola and knew Zobayan for 12 years, told The Daily Beast on Monday it was important for "armchair quarterbacks" to allow time for federal officials to investigate before jumping to conclusions about his friend."When you think of pilots and you think Tom Cruise and Maverick, that wasn't what was happening there," he said. "I promise you, any flying that Ara was doing... he was in a safe condition. He's not a guy to push limits. He's a rule follower and he knows the rules and the regulations." Zobayan's aircraft hit the ground at approximately 9:47 a.m. Pacific, leaving a crash site that authorities say will take more than eight days to fully excavate. The pilot was of Armenian descent, according to The Armenian Report, a Facebook page for English-language news in that community, and news of his death brought an outpouring from across Los Angeles. "I love all Armenians!," a Facebook user named Maria Daikovich wrote under the post. "I met Ara many years ago. This is such a big loss. Ara was the kindness and one of the most beautiful people I know. ��������RIP dear Ara. God bless all who lost their lives." Jason McGahan contributed reporting to this story.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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| Get Early Access to Backcountry’s Big Winter Sale Right Now Posted: 27 Jan 2020 01:30 PM PST |
| These are all the companies who have shut down operations in China over the deadly Wuhan coronavirus outbreak Posted: 27 Jan 2020 04:44 AM PST  Companies including McDonald's, Ikea, and Peugeot Citroen have shut down operations in Wuhan city and its surrounding area over the outbreak.
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| British man dies in US immigration detention in Florida Posted: 27 Jan 2020 05:16 PM PST  * Death of man, 39, initially attributed to hanging * UK Foreign Office said to be in touch with man's wifeA British man has died while being held in US immigration detention in Florida, the Guardian has confirmed.The death was first reported by BuzzFeed News, which said the man was 39 years old and that the cause was initially attributed to asphyxiation due to hanging. The incident was reported to have occurred on Saturday last week."Our staff are in contact with the US authorities following the death of a British man in Florida," said a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office in London.Foreign Office officials are understood to have been in contact with the deceased man's wife, as US officials investigate the circumstances of the death.Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Guardian.In a statement to BuzzFeed, the agency identified the deceased man as Ben James Owen and clarified he had died at the Baker county detention center in Macclenny, Florida. Officials said Owen had entered the US on a temporary visa in July and had been arrested on suspicion of felony aggravated stalking, felony false imprisonment, domestic assault, and violating the conditions of his pre-trial release. The agency said the case remained under investigation.The incident marks the fifth death at a detention centre in the 2020 fiscal year, which begins in October 2019. There were eight deaths in Ice detention in the 2019 fiscal year.The immigration detention population in the United States has soared under the Trump administration. Last year Ice detained 510,854 people, compared with 396,448 in 2018. The administration has also increased its use of detention facilities, mostly run by private security companies, with a new concentration of detention centres opening in the deep south.Medical provision and mental health care at detention facilities has come under increased criticism under the Trump administration after a spate of high profile deaths since 2017.At the end of last year House Democrats on the oversight and reform committee launched an inquiry to investigate a "troubling pattern of abuse and poor treatment" of migrants in custody.
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| Icelandic volcano swell signals potential eruption Posted: 27 Jan 2020 08:06 AM PST  Small earthquakes and a so-called "inflation" of the mountain, signalling a potential volcanic eruption, have been reported near Iceland's famous "Blue Lagoon," local authorities said Monday. The Icelandic Met Office declared a state of uncertainty over the weekend, following days of several smaller earthquakes and a swelling of the mountain. For nearly a week, a series of earthquakes have been shaking the area around Grindavik, not far from the steaming waters of the "Blue Lagoon," a popular geothermal spa in southwestern Iceland on the Reykjanes Peninsula.
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| Why The Ninth Circut Court Reluctantly Dismissed The Kids' Climate Case Posted: 26 Jan 2020 09:00 PM PST  This was not a problem for the courts.
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| After Book Leak, Republicans Face a Choice on Whom to Believe: President Trump or John Bolton? Posted: 27 Jan 2020 02:01 PM PST  John Bolton's allegations in his forthcoming book about President Trump withholding Ukraine aid put Senate Republicans in a tight spot.
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| Father arrested in killings of 5 of his infant children Posted: 27 Jan 2020 09:44 AM PST  A California father about to be freed from prison has been taken into custody in connection with the decades-old killings of five of his infant children in a case a sheriff said has haunted his agency for years. Paul Perez, 57, a convicted sex offender with a 20-year criminal history, was charged in the deaths of the children born between 1992 and 2001, authorities announced Monday, the same day he was supposed to be released from a state prison in Delano on unrelated charges. A homicide investigation was launched in the spring of 2007 after a fisherman found the badly decomposed remains of a 3-month-old boy recently identified as Nikko Lee Perez.
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| Wells Fargo executives are getting the treatment Wall Street deserved after 2008 Posted: 27 Jan 2020 03:03 AM PST  After the 2008 financial crisis, American lawmakers set a terrible precedent. The big banks faced billions in fines, and new regulations were imposed on them. But for the individuals in charge of the banks when they almost destroyed the global economy, there were virtually no consequences: Few fines, and even fewer prosecutions. The executives basically skated, and many of them remain in their positions today.But it looks like things may actually go differently for the people who were in charge of Wells Fargo.You might recall how, back in 2016, a scandal suddenly exploded around the bank. Wells Fargo employees had defrauded customers on a massive and industrial scale by opening accounts they didn't ask for, signing them up for products they didn't want, and charging them fees they shouldn't have had to pay. Public outrage ensued, the bank was raked over the coals by Congress, and the CEO who presided over the debacle, John Stumpf, stepped down. (Amazingly, Stumpf's successor, Tim Sloan, also dropped out as CEO last year, after failing to clean up Wells Fargo's act to everyone's satisfaction.) The bank's board also clawed back $69 million worth of stock payouts it had given Stumpf on his way out the door.As welcome as those repercussions were, they were basically compensation losses. They were not society at large demanding accountability. That changed last week, when the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) brought the hammer down: In an announced settlement with the office, Stumpf will pay a $17.5 million fine and agree to a lifetime ban from the banking industry.It's unclear how large Stumpf's personal fortune is now, but it was around $200 million before the scandal broke in 2016. That $17.5 million could be a decent chunk of what's left, but you could also argue it should be even larger to really act as a deterrence to others. But $17.5 million is also the biggest penalty the OCC has ever leveled against an individual. And it wants to impose an even bigger $25 million penalty on Carrie Tolstedt, who ran the division where most of the abuses occurred. (Tolstedt retired from Wells Fargo in 2016, a few months before the scandal broke.) The lifetime ban is striking too — one should never underestimate how much pride and hubris these sorts of financial titans derive from their position.Two other lower-level former executives from Wells Fargo have agreed to lesser fines and punishments. Five others, including Tolstedt, have also been charged by the OCC, but are fighting it in court. And everyone could still face criminal charges from the Justice Department.This is already a remarkable outcome compared to how the 2008 financial crisis was handled, not to mention other scandals, as multiple outlets noted. "Even though the biggest American banks paid billions of dollars to settle civil cases stemming from their mortgage activities in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, their chief executives have not given up a penny to federal bank regulators," The New York Times wrote. Kenneth Lewis, CEO of Bank of America during the crisis, paid no fines to federal regulators, to take one example. (He did have to fork over some money to New York State prosecutors.) JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon led the bank through the $6 billion London Whale scandal, and the bank has paid $44 million in fines since 2008, but none of that came out of Dimon's own pocket.The differences in treatment are all the more infuriating when you consider how the same system-wide mad scramble for profits drove both scandals.The OCC released a massive 100-page legal brief detailing how Wells Fargo's demands and sales goals, imposed by the higher-ups, turned the bank into a thunderdome for "hundreds of thousands" of mid- and low-level employees. They basically had to either rip off customers, or be fired. An employee wrote directly to Stumpf's office, admitting that "I had less stress in the 1991 Gulf War than working for Wells Fargo." Workers at one Wells Fargo branch were told they would be "transferred to a store where someone had been shot and killed" if they didn't hit their sales targets. The OCC's brief includes a cascade of emails and memos and other evidence showing Stumpf and the rest of Wells Fargo's executive hierarchy either approved of what was going on, or were grossly negligent. The agency sensibly concluded that Stumpf should be held personally accountable for overseeing the ecosystem that created this whole mess; the buck, after all, stops with him.When it came to the housing bubble, junk financial engineering allowed bad mortgages to be passed off as super-safe investments, sliced and diced into numerous instruments, then sold off throughout the system. This ability to essentially launder bad investments opened up a world of profit possibilities, but it also meant tons of bad mortgages had to be created to fuel the money grab. And that led to a massive effort throughout the banking industry to sucker customers into taking on shoddy loans and poorly-designed mortgages. Necessary paperwork was flubbed or falsified, and millions of families were shoveled though inappropriate and straight-up illegal foreclosures to protect the banks' bottom line once the housing bubble popped.Again, the people in charge of the banks were either completely complicit, or criminally incompetent. But in the latter case, federal lawmakers and regulators essentially lost their nerve, refusing to go after the executives out of fear of creating a panic.It's worth wondering how American politics might have evolved differently over the last decade if all the C-suite occupants on Wall Street had gotten the same treatment as Stumpf. Would the country have suffered from the same simmering populist resentment that ultimately gave us President Trump? Maybe not.Finally, the other striking aspect of this is that it's Trump's regulators who decided to throw the book at Stumpf and his lieutenants. Trump's man in charge of the OCC, John Otting, is a textbook case of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse: Before taking over the OCC, he was in charge at OneWest Bank, which was neck deep in the mortgage abuses of the crisis. And in other instances, Otting has happily pushed Trump's kid gloves approach to Wall Street. Yet it was the Obama administration, supposedly a sober and technocratic operation by comparison, that basically let all the titans of Wall Street off the hook after 2008.It's no secret that Trump's White House is basically a grift machine. But perhaps there's a paradoxical lesson in that: Having dismissed the demands of technocratic sobriety, Trump's people are both more willing to hand the big bank executives their heart's desire, and more willing to throw them under the bus if popular anger demands it. Something to think about there.More stories from theweek.com Mike Pompeo is a disgrace Trump's lawyers attack the Bidens during impeachment trial All the president's turncoats
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| Kobe Bryant's helicopter pilot was given special clearance to fly in foggy weather minutes before the deadly crash Posted: 27 Jan 2020 10:06 AM PST  The helicopter crashed in Calabasas, killing all nine people on board, including Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna.
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| CDC Split With China on Coronavirus Spread as Possible U.S. Cases Hit 110 Posted: 27 Jan 2020 11:26 AM PST  As authorities in China scrambled to handle a coronavirus that has killed at least 81 people, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday described a surging potential crisis even as they pushed back on the latest thinking from Beijing about just how easily it spreads.Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters that the number of confirmed cases stateside had reached five—and that there had been a total of 110 "persons under investigation" for the virus in 26 states over the past week.Thirty-two of those people tested negative, and there had been no confirmed person-to-person transmissions inside the country, Messonnier said on Monday. The confirmed cases in the U.S. include patients in Orange County, California; a man in his 30s in Washington state; a woman in her 60s in Chicago; a passenger who felt ill after flying into Los Angeles International Airport; and a student at Arizona State University who does not live in university housing, the CDC said on Sunday. All of the U.S. cases appeared to involve patients who had recently traveled from Wuhan, China—the epicenter of the deadly virus. Seventy-three people were still being evaluated for the virus as of Monday.Fifth U.S. Case of Coronavirus Confirmed in Patient Who Traveled From Wuhan, China"We understand that many people in the United States are worried about this virus and how it will affect Americans," Messonnier said, adding that "risk depends on exposure," which for Americans remained "low" on Monday.In each U.S. case, health officials have said they will trace the patient's contacts and identify anyone who may have had prolonged exposure, then monitor those individuals for symptoms. In the U.S., anyone who has had close contact with confirmed patients has not been quarantined unless and until they display symptoms.That policy came into question over the weekend, when China's health minister Ma Xiaowei said "the ability of the virus to spread is getting stronger" and that authorities in that country now believe the virus can spread during the incubation period—even before infected patients become symptomatic. A study published last week in the journal Lancet appeared to bolster that contention.But Messonnier said the CDC had not seen "any clear evidence of patients being infectious before symptom onset" as of Monday, even if authorities in the U.S. "are being very aggressive and very cautious in tracking close contacts" of infected individuals."This outbreak is unfolding rapidly, and we are rapidly looking at how that impacts our posture at the border," said Messonnier. "I expect that in the coming days, our travel recommendations will change."Experts said that even as statements from Chinese health officials had to be viewed through a political lens, outright dismissal of asymptomatic transmission was premature.Eric Toner, a senior scientist with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the University's School of Public Health, called the question "nuanced." "It's hard to know why the [Chinese] minister was so sure," said Toner. "The evidence we have seen is quite suggestive of pre-symptomatic transmission, at least in some people, but not conclusive. He may have information that we do not."For now, officials were still screening passengers at five American airports: Los Angeles International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Of course, fewer travelers are coming out of Wuhan in the wake of a travel lockdown late last week; Messonnier said the CDC had screened approximately 2,400 people in those airports so far but that "the number of people coming from Wuhan is declining."Though Chinese authorities halted travel from Wuhan to stop the spread of the virus, the U.S. is among several countries—including France and Russia—that were given special permission to evacuate diplomats and private citizens. In addition to the 81 dead in China—76 of whom reportedly lived in Wuhan—nearly 3,000 people across the world, including a 9-month-old baby girl in Beijing, had confirmed cases of the virus as of Monday morning. Aside from the five cases in the U.S., more have been reported in Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, Macau, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, France, Canada, Vietnam, and Nepal. There had been no deaths from the virus reported outside of China as of Monday morning. But the new fatalities in that country over the weekend, including an 88-year-old man in Shanghai, stoked fears that the government had failed to contain the infection's spread. Beijing announced Monday morning that it would push back the official end of the Lunar New Year holiday to Thursday from Sunday in order to "reduce mass gatherings" and "block the spread of the epidemic," according to a statement from China's cabinet.Meanwhile, Wuhan's mayor, Zhou Xianwang, on Monday offered to step down, along with the city's party secretary, Ma Guoqiang, in order to "appease public indignation." He said the pair were prepared to take responsibility for the crisis after days of public outcries from citizens, on social media and elsewhere."Our names will live in infamy, but as long as it is conducive to the control of the disease and to the people's lives and safety, Comrade Ma Guoqiang and I will bear any responsibility," Zhou reportedly said Monday.Dr. Adrian Hyzler, chief medical officer for Healix International, which provides medical information to travelers, told The Daily Beast the CDC will know much more about how easily the virus spreads once the incubation period—estimated at a maximum of 14 days—has passed in the five U.S. cases. "If, as the Chinese are saying, patients are contagious before symptoms develop, then it is much harder to control," he said.Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify that the CDC cleared 32 people who tested negative for the virus out of 110 potential cases.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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| Poland, Israel condemn resurgent anti-Semitism at Auschwitz commemoration Posted: 26 Jan 2020 04:25 PM PST  The presidents of Israel and Poland called on Monday for greater efforts to combat anti-Semitism as the world marked 75 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp amid concerns over a resurgence of anti-Jewish prejudice. "Our duty is to fight anti-Semitism, racism and fascist nostalgia, those sick evils that ... threaten to eat away at the foundations of our democracies," Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said at a venue near the former camp, which is now a museum. Polish President Andrzej Duda, who did not attend Israel's national Holocaust Memorial last Thursday because he was not allowed to speak, thanked Rivlin for his presence at Auschwitz.
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| A Dangerous Game: Russia and America Keep Flying Their Planes Near Each Other's Borders Posted: 27 Jan 2020 01:58 AM PST  Nuclear chicken anyone?
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| Ken Starr defends Trump as Bolton revelations roil trial Posted: 27 Jan 2020 01:06 PM PST  Pressure mounted on Republicans on Monday to call former national security advisor John Bolton as a witness at Donald Trump's Senate impeachment trial following explosive new revelations about the US president's dealings with Ukraine. As Clinton impeachment investigator Ken Starr resumed the White House defense of Trump on the Senate floor, at least three Republican senators indicated they would favor hearing testimony from the 71-year-old Bolton.
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| Iranian general warns of retaliation if US threats continue Posted: 27 Jan 2020 05:47 AM PST  The chief of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Monday that it will retaliate against American and Israeli commanders if the U.S. continues to threaten top Iranian generals. The U.S. killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who headed the expeditionary Quds force, in a drone strike outside of Baghdad's airport in Iraq on Jan. 3. Five days later, Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles at two bases in Iraq housing American troops, causing injuries but no fatalities among soldiers there.
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| Saudi foreign minister says Israeli passport holders cannot visit: CNN Posted: 27 Jan 2020 11:11 AM PST  Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Israelis were not welcome to visit the kingdom after Israel decreed that Israeli citizens could visit Saudi Arabia under certain circumstances, CNN reported on Monday.
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| Bloomberg Offers Few Details to Back Up Trillions in Spending Posted: 27 Jan 2020 01:00 AM PST ![Bloomberg Offers Few Details to Back Up Trillions in Spending]( "Bloomberg Offers Few Details to Back Up Trillions in Spending") (Bloomberg) -- Ask Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg how he'll pay for his plans to create jobs, provide health insurance and repair roads and bridges, and you get the same answer: Wait until you see my tax plan.Bloomberg has released almost 20 proposals since joining the race on Nov. 24: $1.2 trillion for infrastructure. $70 billion of federal spending in low-income neighborhoods to aid black homeownership. Another trillion and a half for health care. He hasn't detailed where the money for the ambitious proposals will come from.If Bloomberg comes out of Super Tuesday among the Democratic race's top tier, there will be increasing pressure on him to explain how he's going to pay for his policies, said Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who hasn't endorsed a 2020 candidate."There will be a great hue and cry for him to add substance to his proposals and do it very quickly," Fowler said.Bloomberg's campaign says that it plans to release further details about the tax proposal as soon as next week and that it will show how he plans to pay for his proposals.That would mean details come out before 14 U.S. states vote March 3 on Super Tuesday, the contests on which Bloomberg is staking his campaign. But until then, voters have only heard him say he supports "taxing wealthy people like me" to pay for a growing list of policy proposals.Fourth PlaceThe $250 million in advertising he's spent so far delivering this message has garnered him 8% in a national poll released Sunday by the Washington Post and ABC News, enough for fourth place. That put him ahead of Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar and behind the front-running Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.A Fox News poll on Sunday showed Bloomberg in fourth place with 10% support, behind Biden, Sanders and Warren.The approach is at odds with Bloomberg's pitch -- that his three terms as New York mayor and in building the company that bears his name show he's a practical problem solver, someone who takes a data-driven approach to running government efficiently.It's also at odds with his Democratic rivals who often explain revenue streams when they propose big programs. No one does that more thoroughly than Warren, whose plan to pay for her $20.5 trillion health care plan ran 19 pages.Not that their estimates have always had pinpoint accuracy. Warren's and Sanders's Medicare For All cost estimates differ by $10 trillion. And academics have found Warren's, Biden's and Sanders's revenue estimates from their tax plans overly rosy.The lack of details hasn't stopped the Bloomberg campaign from rolling out the proposals in his campaign's earliest days, sometimes at a clip of two or three a week. The media has started to notice, as one recent Associated Press article led off by noting the lack of details about paying for a promise to create millions of new jobs.Bloomberg's plans on health care, the economy, climate change and other issues where he specifies costs total more than $3 trillion over 10 years. Many more don't list a cost.Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.His campaign has said it's hard to determine cost estimates because plans are related, and the cost or savings in one proposal can affect another. But the campaign has consistently said that Bloomberg's tax plan will pay for the policies he is releasing.No Wealth TaxBloomberg himself has said little about his tax plan other than he supports increasing taxes on the rich but not with a wealth tax. He opposes the wealth taxes proposed by Warren and Sanders, which would place a tax on the fortunes of millionaires and billionaires.In a Jan. 11 interview, Bloomberg said the corporate tax rate cut in the Republicans' 2017 tax overhaul was necessary for competitive reasons but was too deep, and he opposed the measure's cuts in income-tax rates."I've said I didn't need the cut, and that was the money that we needed for infrastructure," Bloomberg said. "You can expect me to try to rectify that in our proposals."As New York's mayor, Bloomberg increased property taxes by 18.5% in 2003 – the largest in the city's history -- to generate $837 million to plug budget deficits. His poll numbers suffered but he was re-elected in 2005.Varying DetailOther Democratic presidential candidates have released cost estimates and funding sources for their plans in varying levels of detail. Biden has said he would pay for $3.2 trillion in proposals with new and higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, including a minimum federal levy targeting companies that have reported paying no federal income taxes in recent years.Sanders has said his Medicare-for-All plan alone would cost more than $30 trillion over a decade but hasn't fully detailed how he'd pay for it except to say taxes would go up while out-of-pocket health costs would go down.Leonard Burman, a fellow at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan policy research group in Washington, said he would expect Bloomberg "to put out a package where the revenues could cover the costs, but it's just really hard to tell what it would look like without knowing the exact price tag and the details." Burman co-founded the Tax Policy Center, which analyzes candidate tax plans.To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Niquette in Columbus at mniquette@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Craig GordonFor 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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| Historians Unmask Fourth Soviet Spy Who Worked on the Atomic Bomb Posted: 27 Jan 2020 02:07 PM PST  Just what nuclear secrets did "Godsend" deliver to Russia in the 1940s?
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| So many drones and aircraft swarmed the site of Kobe Bryant's helicopter crash that the FAA was forced to close the airspace Posted: 27 Jan 2020 01:44 PM PST  The restriction is in effect until the end of the month to prevent aircraft from entering the airspace, a rare occurrence for crashes.
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| South Carolina shooting: Two dead and four wounded after gunman opens fire in bar Posted: 27 Jan 2020 08:24 AM PST  Two people are dead and at least four are wounded following a shooting at a South Carolina bar on Sunday morning.The Darlington County Coroner's Office identified Dicaprio Collins, 21 and Bryan Robinson, 29 as the victims of the shooting at Mac's Lounge in Hartsville, South Carolina.
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| U.S. government urges Americans to reconsider travel to China because of coronavirus Posted: 27 Jan 2020 09:00 AM PST  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Monday it had not recorded any new confirmed cases of the illness overnight since its last update of five, but that as many as 110 potential cases were under investigation.The State Department said Americans should reconsider any plans to travel to China during the outbreak.
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| Navistar loses lawsuit against US Army and Oshkosh over vehicle buys Posted: 27 Jan 2020 01:25 PM PST  The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has dismissed Navistar's complaint against the U.S. Army and Oshkosh Defense over the service's decision to avoid competition for a vehicle procurement effort.
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| Iran general warns of retaliation if U.S. threats continue Posted: 27 Jan 2020 07:39 AM PST  The chief of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard warned on Monday that it will retaliate against American and Israeli commanders if the United States continues to threaten top Iranian generals.
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| Downing of jet in Iran reveals Islamic Republic's wider woes Posted: 26 Jan 2020 10:23 PM PST ![Downing of jet in Iran reveals Islamic Republic's wider woes]( "Downing of jet in Iran reveals Islamic Republic's wider woes") The Ukrainian jetliner stood ready for takeoff at Iran's main international airport bound for Kyiv, packed with passengers and so many bags on one of the cheapest routes to the West that the ground crew rushed to unload some luggage to make its weight for flight. Nearly an hour late, Tehran air traffic controllers finally cleared Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 for takeoff, carrying a newlywed couple, Iranian students bound for universities in Canada and others seeking a better life abroad. The plane would be shot down only minutes later by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
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| 'Draconian' travel curbs needed to halt spread of virus: scientists Posted: 27 Jan 2020 10:18 AM PST  Governments need to implement "draconian" travel curbs to stop a mystery coronavirus in China becoming a global epidemic, a team of experts mapping the outbreak said Monday. Scientists at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) presented a briefing warning that the spread of the deadly SARS-like virus that first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan was accelerating. "We have to be prepared that this particular epidemic may be about to become a global epidemic," said Gabriel Leung, head of the team.
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| Andrew Yang Will Be Back on Democratic Debate Stage in February Posted: 26 Jan 2020 09:06 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Businessman and outsider Democratic candidate for president Andrew Yang has earned a spot in the upcoming eighth Democratic debate in New Hampshire. In order to make the stage for the debate on Feb. 7, candidates have to receive at least 5% in four Democratic National Committee--approved polls or 7% in two early-state polls. Candidates also have to receive at least 225,000 individual contributions. Yang had already met the donor threshold. He earned 7% in a national poll from a Washington Post and ABC News poll and 5% in a Fox News poll, both released Sunday. He had received 5% in a December NPR/PBS/Marist national poll and 5% in an early January Quinnipiac University national poll. Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer and Elizabeth Warren have already qualified. Candidates who come out of the Iowa caucus with at least one pledged delegate to the Democratic convention also automatically qualify for the debate. The entrepreneur did not qualify for the last debate in Des Moines. He's currently on a 17-day bus tour of Iowa ahead of the Feb. 3 caucus in that state. (Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)This post is part of Campaign Update, our live coverage from the 2020 campaign trail.To contact the author of this story: Emma Kinery in Washington at ekinery@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Ros Krasny at rkrasny1@bloomberg.net, Magan SherzaiFor 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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| Greta Thunberg slammed the Associated Press for cropping a black activist out of a photo of her at Davos Posted: 27 Jan 2020 05:21 AM PST  "You didn't just erase a photo. You erased a continent," Ugandan climate change activist Vanessa Nakate said in a tweet responding to the slight.
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| Kobe Bryant created his 'Black Mamba' alter-ego as a way to get through the lowest point of his career Posted: 27 Jan 2020 08:51 AM PST  Kobe Bryant created the alter-ego at a time when he was going through several off-the-court ordeals.
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| Australia's rainy respite from bushfires seen ending Posted: 26 Jan 2020 03:59 PM PST  A recent respite for Australian firefighters that brought rains and cooler weather is set to end, meteorologists warned on Monday, with hot conditions forecast for later this week raising a risk that blazes may start spreading again. More than a week of solid rain in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, the three states most affected by the fires, has more than halved the number of blazes, but above average temperatures were set to return by the weekend. "Unfortunately, the reprieve may be short-lived with a blast of heat likely late this week in some areas," the New South Wales Bureau of Meteorology said on Twitter.
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| What Happens if a Battleship and Submarine Had a Baby? Posted: 25 Jan 2020 08:00 PM PST  It's been tried before.
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| Underwater bombs damage Syria's offshore oil facilities Posted: 27 Jan 2020 10:43 AM PST  Bombs planted underwater off Syria's coast exploded Monday, damaging oil facilities used to pump oil into one of Syria's two petroleum refineries, state media and the oil minister said. Oil minister Ali Ghanem told state TV that the bombs were planted by divers in the facility used to pump oil to the coast. "The aim of the attack is to cease (oil) imports into Syria," Ghanem said, adding the ministry's experts are evaluating and fixing the damage.
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| GOP Senator: Trump tweet not a 'death threat' against Schiff Posted: 26 Jan 2020 10:03 AM PST  Sen. James Lankford didn't seem too perturbed by a tweet President Trump sent Saturday, in which the president said the House's lead impeachment prosecutor Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has not "paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our country."Lankford told CNN's Jake Tapper during Sunday's edition of State of the Union that he doesn't consider the tweet a "death threat," which Tapper said Schiff has been receiving. Tapper wondered why Lankford wasn't bothered by Trump's words when he was offended by Schiff's comment earlier this week about how he had heard Republican senators were warned they're heads would end up on a pike should they defy Trump. Lankford said it's because Schiff's insinuation that GOP lawmakers act only out of fear invalidates their work.> Welp, here's Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) completely downplaying Trump's "pay a price" tweet directed at Adam Schiff:> > "I don't think it's a death threat. I don't think he is encouraging a death threat." pic.twitter.com/E4NLc4uRFf> > -- Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) January 26, 2020On the other hand, Schiff, whom Trump described as "probably a very sick man," told NBC's Chuck Todd on Sunday's edition of Meet the Press that he's pretty sure Trump was issuing a threat of some sort. > WATCH: @RepAdamSchiff: "Look at the president's tweets about me today saying I should pay a price.."@chucktodd: "Do you take that as a threat?"@RepAdamSchiff: "I think it is intended to be." pic.twitter.com/8uWXRSJKj0> > -- Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 26, 2020More stories from theweek.com Fox News poll finds independents want the Senate to convict and remove Trump by 19-point margin Mick Mulvaney denies knowing about Ukraine conversation between Trump and Bolton Mike Pompeo is a disgrace
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| Global alarm grows as China's capital reports first virus death Posted: 27 Jan 2020 02:23 PM PST  China's capital on Monday recorded its first death from a deadly coronavirus as it struggles to contain a rapidly spreading disease that has sparked global alarm, with countries scrambling to evacuate their citizens from the epicentre of the epidemic. The fatality in Beijing raises the death toll from the new virus to 82, with more than 2,700 people infected across the nation. The United States urged its citizens to "reconsider" all travel to China and told them not to go to central Hubei province, where the pneumonia-like virus emerged.
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| Gambia Outlaws Group Calling for President Barrow to Step Down Posted: 27 Jan 2020 03:34 AM PST ![Gambia Outlaws Group Calling for President Barrow to Step Down]( "Gambia Outlaws Group Calling for President Barrow to Step Down") (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Next Africa newsletter and follow Bloomberg Africa on TwitterThe Gambian government banned an activist group, made mass arrests and shut down two radio stations in the most severe crackdown on dissent since President Adama Barrow took office three years ago.Police arrested 137 members of the 'Three Years is Enough' movement at a protest Sunday in a town about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) north of the capital, Banjul. The group was calling for Barrow to step down this year in line with a deal he struck with coalition parties that helped end his predecessor's 22-year-rule. The government also detained journalists covering the protest.The group is now considered "a subversive, violent and illegal movement," government spokesman Ebrima Sankareh said in a statement. It is banned "from ever operating within the shores of The Gambia."Barrow, 54, defeated former dictator Yahya Jammeh in December 2016 with the support of seven political parties that had rallied behind him to bring down the former leader's repressive regime. He took office in January 2017 after a regional armed intervention forced Jammeh to step down. Barrow is expected to run for re-election in 2021 despite his promise to coalition partners.Protesters were arrested "for simply exercising their rights," an executive member of the movement, Sheriffo Sonko, said by phone. He said his organization had planned a peaceful protest.To contact the reporter on this story: Modou Joof in Johannesburg at mjoof@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Andre Janse van Vuuren at ajansevanvuu@bloomberg.net, Yinka Ibukun, 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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| Pro-Life Dem Confronts Buttigieg over Party’s Commitment to Abortion: ‘We Have No Part in the Party’ Posted: 27 Jan 2020 05:45 AM PST  South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg was confronted by a pro-life Democratic voter over the party's position on abortion during a Fox News town hall event on Sunday."I am a proud pro-life Democrat," audience member Kristin Day said. "Would you support more moderate platform language [regarding abortion] in the Democratic Party to ensure that the party of diversity and inclusion really does include everybody?" Currently, the Democratic party platform supports abortion up to nine months into pregnancy."I support the position of my party, that this kind of medical care needs to be available to everyone, and I support the Roe vs. Wade framework that holds that early in pregnancy there are very few restrictions and late in pregnancy there are very few exceptions," Buttigieg responded. "The best I can offer is that we may disagree on that very important issue and hopefully we will be able to partner on other issues."The exchange happened two days after President Trump became the first U.S. president in history to address the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C."Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House," Trump told the audience at the march.The highest-ranking Democrat to address the march was Louisiana state representative Katrina Jackson, who wrote legislation in 2014 that restricted abortion in the state."Louisiana is the number one pro-life state. And do you know why? Because in Louisiana, the majority of Democrats who are elected are pro-lifers," Jackson said. "Every day that I walk into the state capitol, I am greeted by pro-lifers regardless of whether they're black, white, Republican, Democrat, male, female."
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