| Can Democrats turn Texas blue? Posted: 07 Mar 2020 10:06 AM PST  Republicans have carried Texas in every presidential contest since 1980, often by substantial margins. Both houses of the state legislature have been red for nearly 20 years. Despite all that, Democrats have eyed Texas as a possible game changer for a long time. As the second most populous state, Texas carries an Electoral College payload that could fundamentally shift the balance of presidential power.
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| Sanders backed by Justice Democrats Posted: 08 Mar 2020 06:00 AM PDT  The organization calls the Vermont senator a galvanizing force
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| Amy Klobuchar sparks Biden vice president rumours after slip of the tongue at rally Posted: 08 Mar 2020 07:49 AM PDT  Amy Klobuchar had a slip of tongue when speaking to a crowd of supporters, suggesting she might be Joe Biden's pick for vice president.The Minnesota senator was speaking at a campaign rally for Mr Biden on Saturday in Michigan when she sparked the rumours.
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| Iranian Lawmaker Dies of Coronavirus as Infections Spread Posted: 07 Mar 2020 07:10 AM PST |
| Barr Increasingly Appears Focused on Undermining Mueller Inquiry Posted: 07 Mar 2020 07:13 AM PST  WASHINGTON -- Attorney General William Barr testified before Congress last spring that "it's time for everybody to move on" from the special counsel investigation into whether Donald Trump associates conspired with Russia's 2016 election interference.Nearly a year later, however, it is clear that Barr has not moved on from the investigation at all. Rather, he increasingly appears to be chiseling away at it.The attorney general's handling of the results of the Russia inquiry came under fire when a federal judge questioned this week whether Barr had sought to create a "one-sided narrative" clearing Trump of misconduct. The judge said Barr displayed a "lack of candor" in remarks that helped shape the public view of the special counsel's report before it was released in April.In fact, Barr's comments then were but the first in a series of actions in which he cast doubt not just on the findings of the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and some of the resulting prosecutions, but on its very premise. In the process, Barr demoralized some of the department's rank and file and lent credence to Republican politicians who seek to elevate the Mueller investigation into an election-year political issue -- including Trump."I'm deeply troubled by what I've been seeing with Barr's stewardship of the Justice Department," said Nancy Baker, a scholar of attorneys general who studied Barr's first stint in the post under President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s. At the very least, she said, he has created the appearance that he does not "respect the long-standing norms of departmental independence."Some of Barr's defenders insist that he is suffering from a situation beyond his control: namely, a president whose running commentary on criminal cases he has an interest in has sowed suspicion about the attorney general's motives. In a ruling Thursday in a Freedom of Information Act case over the Mueller report, Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District for the District of Columbia questioned whether Barr had redacted portions of the Mueller report in order to protect the president.The department's spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, said Friday that "the court's assertions were contrary to the facts" and that Mueller's team helped the attorney general decide what information should be kept out of public view.Nonetheless, the judge's criticism reinforced the impression that Barr has been on a mission to undercut the Mueller inquiry. In ever stronger terms, Barr has implied that Mueller was appointed in 2017 only because FBI officials rushed without reason to escalate their suspicions about the Trump campaign into a full-blown investigation.The Justice Department's own inspector general rejected that premise late last year, finding that the bureau's decision was justified by the facts. But Barr has assigned a federal prosecutor to investigate the matter further and has suggested that the inquiry might conclude that the FBI acted in bad faith. Investigators are also said to be examining the intelligence agencies' assessment that President Vladimir Putin of Russia interfered in the American presidential race on behalf of Trump.Last month, Barr appointed another outside prosecutor to review a case that Mueller brought against the president's former national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI. And in a second case that the Mueller team brought against Roger Stone, Trump's longtime friend, the attorney general overruled career prosecutors to seek a more lenient prison sentence, triggering a chain of events that the federal judge overseeing the case called "unprecedented."In those and other instances, Barr has never mentioned Mueller by name. But he has increasingly sided with the view of Trump and his allies that the special counsel's inquiry was baseless. As Barr put it succinctly in a December interview with NBC News, "Our nation was turned on its head for three years, I think, based on a completely bogus narrative."He has implicitly criticized both John Brennan, the CIA director under President Barack Obama, and James Comey, who Trump fired as FBI director in 2017, for actions related to the Russia inquiry. Noting that Brennan twice warned the Russian government not to interfere in the 2016 election, Barr said it was "inexplicable" no one warned the Trump campaign that the Russians had targeted it.He also said Comey refused to take the necessary security clearance steps that would have enabled him to cooperate fully with Michael Horowitz, the department's inspector general, in his review of aspects of the Russia investigation. But he noted that John Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut who is separately investigating the origins of the Russia inquiry, has the power to compel testimony. "A decision has to be made about motivations," he said.The president's allies are eager to draw Barr more publicly to their side. At an expected upcoming oversight hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who chairs the panel, is likely to question Barr about whether he believes the Mueller inquiry was necessary or justified.Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., another staunch defender of the president, has promised to ask the Justice Department to open a criminal inquiry into whether the special counsel's office mishandled the prosecution of George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.Both Barr's critics and defenders are carefully watching the Flynn case for signs that Barr is backing away from what had been an aggressive prosecution initiated by Mueller and inherited by the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. More than two years after he pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government, Flynn reversed himself and asked to withdraw his plea. He claimed prosecutors had deceived him -- accusations that the judge overseeing the case has firmly rejected.Once Flynn recanted, prosecutors stiffened their sentencing recommendation, saying Flynn deserved up to six months in prison. But in January, they seemed to soften that stance, saying that probation was also "reasonable."Outside prosecutors have now been assigned to review the Flynn prosecution, along with other politically sensitive national security cases -- a level of second-guessing that has disturbed federal prosecutors in the Washington office and elsewhere.Even some of Barr's defenders acknowledge that the sentencing of Stone, a former campaign adviser to Trump, turned into a debacle for the department. Barr overruled the sentencing recommendation of four career prosecutors after Trump wrote on Twitter that Stone was being treated too harshly.The prosecutors withdrew from the case in protest. Faced with a backlash in his department, Barr asked the president on national television to quit commenting on the department's criminal cases, and associates suggested he was on the verge of resigning. But when Trump ignored him, Barr stayed put.While Barr insisted he made his decision about Stone's proper punishment based on the merits of the case, sentencing data show the move was extraordinary.A jury convicted Stone, 67, of obstructing a congressional inquiry, tampering with a witness and lying to congressional investigators. The government requested that Stone be granted leniency despite the fact that he had refused to plead guilty.That was the case in less than 2% of the nearly 75,000 criminal defendants who were sentenced in federal courts in the fiscal year that ended in September, according to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The Stone case also stands out because the government ended up seeking a lighter punishment than the federal probation office had recommended, although that recommendation was likely guided by information provided by the prosecutors who Barr overruled.Prosecutor rarely ask for leniency after a trial because it undercuts their ability to negotiate guilty pleas with other defendants, according to Douglas Berman, a professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law who specializes in sentencing issues. "They want to be able to say, and to have a defense attorney repeat to a client, that they are willing to cut a deal, but they are never going to offer this again," he said.In fact, a review by The New York Times of more than 60 federal cases in which a defendant faced at least one similar charge to Stone's turned up no instances in which the government recommended leniency after a trial. The Times reviewed cases in which defendants were sentenced after January 2017 and that were handled by two of the biggest U.S. attorneys offices: in Washington and in the central district of California.In at least nine cases, the government asked for leniency, technically called a variance from sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors typically cited other mitigating factors, including advanced age or illness, on top of a speedy guilty plea.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Senator Cruz self quarantines after contact with coronavirus carrier Posted: 08 Mar 2020 04:57 PM PDT  Cruz "briefly interacted" with the person at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in Maryland ten days ago, according to a statement by the former Republican presidential hopeful. "Out of an abundance of caution, and because of how frequently I interact with my constituents, I have decided to remain at my home in Texas this week, until a full 14 days have passed since the CPAC interaction," he said. Cruz is one of the highest-profile Americans to undergo coronavirus self-quarantine since the United States reported its first COVID-19 case in late January.
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| Nevada high court defends Tahoe bear activists' free speech Posted: 08 Mar 2020 08:12 AM PDT  Social media comments about protecting bears that were posted by Lake Tahoe activists referring to a longtime wildlife biologist as a murderer constitute "good faith communications" protected as free speech, the Nevada Supreme Court says. The recent opinion doesn't end a lawsuit filed in Washoe County District Court in Reno.
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| As coronavirus cases pop up in US, so does a pop-up shop selling masks, hand sanitizer Posted: 08 Mar 2020 05:28 PM PDT  Adilisha Patrom opened up a coronavirus pop-up shop in northeast Washington to sell supplies like face masks and hand sanitizer.
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| Days After Rep. Matt Gaetz Wore a Gas Mask to Vote on COVID-19 Funding, the Virus Killed One of His Constituents Posted: 08 Mar 2020 11:50 AM PDT  Gaetz released a statement to say that he was 'extremely saddened' by the news
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| 5 arrests in brutal Brooklyn gang assault Posted: 07 Mar 2020 06:31 AM PST  Police have charged five teenage boys in connection with a brutal gang assault and robbery caught on camera in Brooklyn.
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| Jesse Jackson endorses Bernie Sanders who backed his presidential run in 1988 Posted: 08 Mar 2020 10:15 AM PDT  The civil rights leader and former presidential candidate said, "A people far behind cannot catch up choosing the most moderate path."
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| Democrats are more 'optimistic' about taking back the Senate after Biden surge Posted: 07 Mar 2020 08:34 AM PST  While they realize they still have a long way to go, some Democratic lawmakers are feeling more confident about their chances of flipping the Senate in 2020. And they're mostly thanking former Vice President Joe Biden, Politico reports.Biden has re-established himself as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination after he secured a coalition of sorts with the backing of some of his more mderate former contenders. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), although very much still alive in the race, has lost some of his momentum that had some Democratic members of Congress worried about losing House and Senate seats because of his more rigidly left-wing approach."We have a better chance of winning now than we did just a few weeks ago," said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who has backed Biden since early in the campaign cycle.Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), one of the most centrist voices among Senate Democrats, said he feels "optimistic," while Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) added Biden makes it "easier" for down ballot candidates running "in a moderate state."Democrats would need to flip four seats to capture a minimum majority, so it remains a tall task, but, in addition to the growing possibility of a Biden-led ticket, promising Senate candidates like Montana Gov. Steve Bullock have helped brighten the mood within the party at the moment. Read more at Politico.More stories from theweek.com Is coronavirus really a black swan event? China's coronavirus recovery is 'all fake,' whistleblowers and residents claim Former FDA chief urges government to incentivize localities to shut down their economies amid coronavirus spread
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| Empty streets and paranoia as northern Italy goes into lockdown Posted: 08 Mar 2020 02:42 PM PDT  The sun shone on deserted squares in Milan and empty gondolas in Venice on Sunday as a quarter of Italy's population came to grips with being cut off from the rest of the country, under new rules strictly limiting movement in and out of the new red zone. While some packed their bags and fled, most in northern Italy stayed to brave a lockdown imposed by the government on some 15 million people, as it ramps up the fight against the deadly coronavirus. Italy's interior ministry said anyone flouting the lockdown risked at least three months in jail or a 206 euro ($233) fine.
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| Coronavirus: Trump's top expert urges vulnerable elderly people to restrict travel and avoid crowds Posted: 08 Mar 2020 10:15 AM PDT  Donald Trump's top expert on coronavirus has warned elderly people with underlying health conditions to restrict their travel and avoid large gatherings.Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC's Meet the Press: "If you are an elderly person with an underlying condition, if you get infected, the risk of getting into trouble is considerable. So it's our responsibility to protect the vulnerable.
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| Guyana Opposition Calls Nation a Police State as Tensions Mount Posted: 07 Mar 2020 12:37 PM PST |
| How can I get tested for coronavirus? What you should know about test kits Posted: 07 Mar 2020 02:20 AM PST  According to the Association of Public Health Laboratories, there are 69 local and state public health labs that cover 46 states, including D.C.
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| At least 26 Iraqis among killed in Syria road accident Posted: 08 Mar 2020 04:13 AM PDT |
| Remains of 'Baby Evelyn' Boswell are believed to have been found at relative's home Posted: 08 Mar 2020 12:04 PM PDT  The remains were found at a property owned by her mom's relative.
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| This 'isn't Mad Max,' Australian police say after 3 women get into a brawl while panic-buying toilet paper during coronavirus epidemic Posted: 07 Mar 2020 11:51 AM PST  Video from the scene shows a woman saying, "I just want one packet." But the person with the cartful of toilet paper says, "No, not one packet."
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| Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson endorses Bernie Sanders Posted: 07 Mar 2020 05:18 PM PST  Jackson will appear alongside Sanders in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Sunday.
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| Trump 'not concerned at all' after CPAC guest tests positive for coronavirus Posted: 07 Mar 2020 09:22 PM PST  Both Donald Trump and Mike Pence were at the conservative conference but did not have contact with attendee, organization says * Live: coronavirus latestDonald Trump has said he isn't concerned at all about the coronavirus getting closer to the White House after it was revealed that an attendee at grassroots conservative conference CPAC had tested positive.On a day when it also emerged that the nation's capital had recorded its first case, the American Conservative Union said on Saturday that a participant at CPAC, which was attended by both Trump and the US vice-president, Mike Pence, had tested positive for coronavirus.The White House said there was no indication that either Trump or Pence had been close to the infected attendee.Asked if he was concerned about the virus getting closer, Trump said: "No, I'm not concerned at all. No, I'm not. We've done a great job." When asked whether his thousand-person campaign rallies would would continue in light of the CPAC case, the president replied: "We'll have tremendous rallies."Trump held his most recent campaign rally last Monday in Charlotte, North Carolina. He waved off other questions to join a dinner for the president of Brazil, who was visiting Trump at the president's home in south Florida.Saturday also marked the first case in the District of Columbia, with mayor Muriel Bowser saying testing at the public health lab of the DC Department of Forensic Sciences yielded its first presumptive positive.The American Conservative Union put out a statement on Twitter on Saturday evening that said a CPAC attendee "has unfortunately tested positive" and noted that their "exposure" occurred before the conference.The gathering took place in Oxon Hill, Maryland, in late February and was attended by many leading party figures as well as thousands of grassroots members, often accompanied by spouses, children and friends."A New Jersey hospital tested the person and the CDC [the federal public health agency the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] confirmed the result. The individual is under the care of medical professionals in New Jersey and has been quarantined," the statement continued.It informed anyone with concerns to contact the ACU or the department of health of the state of Maryland and urged people to remain calm.The statement said: "This attendee had no contact with the president or vice-president and never attended the events in the main hall."It noted that the Trump administration had been informed of the situation.> Important Health Notification for CPAC 2020 participants and attendees. pic.twitter.com/NtahNO8st3> > — ACU (@ACUConservative) March 7, 2020"We will continue regular communication with all appropriate government officials," the statement continued.> Over 19,000 people attended CPAC last year, and 2020 also had a similar crowd.> > — Philip Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) March 7, 2020The ACU chairman, Matt Schlapp, had previously tweeted a proud message about introducing the president at the CPAC event last weekend.> What an honor to introduce @realDonaldTrump at CPAC2020. > > Watch all of President Trump's CPAC 2020 speech here: https://t.co/gMusCAiuAv pic.twitter.com/0cQ1mYOkAw> > — Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) March 6, 2020He then retweeted several posts from a journalist at the conservative-leaning RealClearPolitics media outlet.> CPAC didn't dawdle. @mschlapp tells me he found out just a couple hours before the statement went out: > > "Our statement really does speak for itself. We are just being transparent and I feel bad for my friend but it's important for our attendees to know what happened."> > — Philip Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) March 7, 2020 The governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, said the state had acted as soon as it became aware of the positive test."Immediately after learning of this individual's interactions in our state, we began coordinating with the White House, the CDC and federal officials, the New Jersey Department of Health, Prince George's County officials, and conference organizers," Hogan said."Due to the scale of this conference, we are urging attendees who are experiencing flu-like symptoms to immediately reach out to their health care provider. We are providing this update not to unnecessarily raise alarm, but in the interest of full transparency and out of an abundance of caution."Also on Saturday, a marine at Virginia's Fort Belvoir became the first military case of coronavirus reported inside the US.The marine was being treated at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, located south of Washington, and had recently returned from an overseas assignment, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said on Twitter.
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| Coronavirus Outbreak: SF's Grand Princess cruise ship cleared to dock in Bay Area Posted: 07 Mar 2020 11:50 PM PST  THE WAIT IS OVER: We now know where the cruise ship is docking in the Bay Area and when.
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| Coronavirus may force Americans to avoid crowds and cancel cruises, health official warns Posted: 08 Mar 2020 11:15 AM PDT  WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans, especially those who are vulnerable, may need to stop attending big gatherings as the coronavirus spreads through U.S. communities, a top health official said on Sunday, as investors braced for another volatile week in financial markets. Anthony Fauci, the head of the infectious diseases unit at the National Institutes of Health, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that after initial missteps distributing tests, there should be 400,000 more tests available by Monday and 4 million by the end of the week. In the United States, 19 people have died out of about 450 reported cases of coronavirus, which originated in China last year and causes the sometimes deadly respiratory illness COVID-19.
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| The (rare) travel upside to coronavirus? You might have a swankier plane on your spring flight Posted: 07 Mar 2020 12:00 PM PST  The airplane shuffle is happening across the country due to steep international flight cuts by U.S. airlines amid the coronavirus outbreak.
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| Televangelist ordered by New York attorney general to stop promoting ‘cure’ for coronavirus Posted: 08 Mar 2020 09:27 AM PDT  A Christian televangelist has been ordered by New York's attorney general to stop promoting a "cure" for the coronavirus to the public.The cease-and-desist letter was sent to the Jim Bakker Show after it had naturopathic doctor Sherrill Sellman as a guest on 12 February.
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| America's housing crisis Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Millions of Americans can no longer dream of buying a home. Rental apartments are also unaffordable. Why? Here's everything you need to know:What's gone wrong? From cities to suburbs to rural America, the cost of housing has far outpaced increases in salaries. Home prices are growing at twice the rate of wages, and there are fewer houses on the market than in any year since 1982. The single-family house, with a garage and a front lawn, remains a bedrock of the American dream, even as it recedes from many people's reach. Young adults are one-third less likely to be homeowners than the previous generation was at the same age, and nearly two-thirds of renters say they can't afford a house. The median single-family house costs about $280,000, with demand driving prices at the lower end of the market to rise twice as fast as those of high-end homes. Once the backbone of U.S. wealth, housing has become a civic, economic, and environmental catastrophe.Is renting any better? It's even worse. Nearly half of renters are cost-burdened — meaning they spend at least 30 percent of their income on rent. Since 1960, renters' average earnings have increased 5 percent as rents have jumped 61 percent. Eleven million Americans spend more than half of their paycheck on rent. They have little choice: After 2011, more than 4 million units renting for $800 or less per month disappeared nationwide. In trendy cities like Seattle and Austin, older, multifamily buildings are being demolished or converted into condominiums and co-ops. A minuscule percentage of new apartments are low-rent. Today, a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a two-bedroom rental in precisely zero U.S. counties; on average, it would take clocking 127 hours a week at the federal minimum wage to make paying for one possible.Are expectations too high? After World War II, home ownership went from a luxurious status symbol to a national priority. "A nation of homeowners, of people who own a real share in their own land, is unconquerable," President Franklin Roosevelt said in 1942. Zoning changes helped create the suburbs, as did improved cars and new roads, enabling people to live farther from work. Mortgage markets developed, and the rate of homeownership grew from 43 percent in 1940 to 66 percent by 2000. The size of houses per resident also doubled in that period. It became conventional wisdom to borrow as much as possible, buy the biggest house attainable, and hold on as the property steadily grew in value. But that's no longer feasible for many people: In 1990, 18 months of the median local salary could buy a house in 72 of America's 100 largest cities, Harvard University found. Now that's possible in just 25 of them.What's jacking up costs? Demand, above all. Houses are supposed to pass between generations, but Baby Boomers are living longer and staying put. People are also moving less than ever, down to 10 percent of the population annually. After the recession, private-equity firms and hedge funds spent an estimated $36 billion on more than 200,000 homes in ailing markets, and their strategy was to evict current residents and target the ultrawealthy. In New York City, homeless shelters have been filling at the same time towering new luxury condos rise into the skyline. Since 2011, the average cost of a New York condo rocketed from $1.15 million to $3.77 million. Even more perversely, nearly half of Manhattan's new luxury condos are empty.Why not build more housing? The cost of land and building materials such as timber and steel keeps climbing, and there are major shortages of construction workers. That makes it financially unfeasible to build low-income housing. In San Francisco, where the median one-bedroom rental goes for $3,700 per month, it costs $700,000 to build a single new apartment unit. "In a lot of cities, the market can't supply housing for people making less than six figures," said James Madden, a Seattle-based affordable-housing developer. Even when developers do seek to build dense rental or condo units with affordable prices, they run into NIMBY — the "not in my back yard" attitude of existing residents who insist that new construction and new residents will disrupt their views, schools, parking, and property values.Can NIMBY be defeated? Government initiatives can only achieve so much without current homeowners making concessions. California is plagued by crippling housing costs and widespread homelessness, but recently the legislature narrowly failed to pass a law that would have overridden local zoning rules to allow high-density housing. NIMBY is on vivid display in Lafayette, Calif., a wealthy town of 25,000 outside San Francisco. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said the state must build 3.5 million homes by 2025 to ease the affordability crisis, yet Lafayette residents were outraged by a proposal to build 315 new apartment units near a commuter train station. When developers and the city manager, Steve Falk, agreed to a compromise of 44 single-family homes on the site, residents went to court to fight that too. Falk resigned, saying he couldn't oppose such a modest plan amid a massive housing crisis. "My conscience," Falk said, "won't allow it."The racial gap in home ownership Scarce housing is behind a surprising number of social problems. Transportation accounts for about one-third of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, and much of that is due to obscene commuting times in cities and suburbs with inadequate mass transit. (Four million Americans spend at least three hours every day driving to and from work.) There's a substantial racial gap among homeowners, with black and Hispanic Americans more than 25 percent less likely to own a home than whites. That gap, which is at least partly caused by redlining and racist lending policies, reinforces racial wealth disparities and impedes social mobility. The poor of all races are most affected by housing shortages and costs; by one estimate, there are now only 37 available affordable units for every 100 extremely poor households. In California, state lawmakers have allowed homeowners to convert garages into residential spaces and build small homes in their backyards, known as granny flats or casitas, that they can rent out. Ben Metcalf, the state's former director of Housing and Community Development, compares renting out parts of your property to growing "victory gardens" during World War II food shortages. "Your civic duty as a Californian," he said, "is you've got to convert your garage."This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, try the magazine for a month here.More stories from theweek.com Is coronavirus really a black swan event? China's coronavirus recovery is 'all fake,' whistleblowers and residents claim Former FDA chief urges government to incentivize localities to shut down their economies amid coronavirus spread
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| Italy has put 16 million people on lockdown to control the escalating coronavirus outbreak Posted: 08 Mar 2020 01:42 AM PST  Schools, museums, theaters, and swimming pools have been shut down in Lombardy and 14 other provinces. Italy has reported 5,883 cases of COVID-19 and 233 deaths so far.
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| Report: Iran Revolutionary Guard commander killed in Syria Posted: 07 Mar 2020 05:41 AM PST |
| Coronavirus: Steps to stay safe Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:43 AM PDT  Dr. Jon LaPook with the latest on the virus' spread in the U.S., and what precautions you should take to avoid infecting yourself and others.
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| Coronavirus has sparked a perfect storm of nationalism and financial speculation Posted: 07 Mar 2020 10:45 PM PST  Wall Street could recover before coronavirus subsides – but the global economy won't be the sameNationalism and speculation have seldom had a better opportunity to combine forces as the one riding today on the coattails of Covid-19, known as the coronavirus.When Covid-19 leapfrogged from China to Italy, even ardent Europeanists normally appreciative of open borders joined the deafening calls to end freedom of movement across Europe's national borders – a longstanding demand of nationalists. Meanwhile, the money men speculating on government debt are performing a classic flight from Italian to German government bonds, seeking the financial safety that only the continent's hegemon can offer during any crisis. As if in a bid to remind us of the great contradiction of our times, Covid-19 is illuminating gloriously the freedom of money to transcend a borderless financial universe while humans remain as fenced in as ever.Meanwhile in the United States, President Trump is combining his standard call for taller walls with a fresh instruction to moneymen to "buy the dip" in Wall Street, rather than to follow their natural instinct to seek refuge in the boring but safe bond markets. A great deal will depend on whether financiers believe Mr Trump or not, and not just because this is an election year.If speculators do believe the American president, Wall Street will recover swiftly even before the epidemic subsides. The forces of xenophobic financialisation will then have triumphed and America's progressives will face an uphill struggle on every political front. As for the European Union, ruling elites will breathe a sigh of relief that a new depression was avoided and return to managing as best as they can the economic stagnation of recent times, tinged this time with a large dose of additional, coronavirus-reinforced, xenophobia.> Speculators will make a mint and nationalist forces will milk the ensuing discontent for all its worthWill Wall Street follow Mr Trump's advice to "buy the dip"? For now, the large players are in two minds. The drop in the stock market does not worry them as such. Their concern is that the recent bull market was running on increasingly suspect debt and that Covid-19 may have pricked a bubble that was going to burst anyway. Similarly in Europe, the worst spectre hovering over investors' heads is that large corporations, relying for too long on free money from the European Central Bank, may be downgraded from investment to junk-grade – especially so at a time of stagnant domestic demand and a collapsed Chinese import market.Taking a leaf out of the aftermath of the crash of 2008, and the Eurozone crisis that followed, bullish speculators are looking at their central banks, primarily the Fed and the ECB, to do, once again, "whatever it takes" to re-float their flagging fortunes. Two questions keep them up at night: will the central banks oblige? And if they do, will it be enough?The first question is easy to answer: governments are impotent on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States the federal budget deficit is already at a historic high, especially in the context of a tight labour market, while the Eurozone remains in the straightjacket of its fiscal compact. Therefore the central banks will be forced, whether they like it or not, to step up to the mark. Already we have seen announcements of lower interest rates, even of Japanese-style semi-direct purchases of government and private debt by the monetary authorities.But will it be enough for the central banks to throw more money at the Covid-19-infected money markets? Will the economy go back to where we were a month ago if enough liquidity is pumped into the system? Or will it resemble a slow puncture that demands increasing pump-priming to stay inflated? Moreover, will the new wall of public money push back the wall of xenophobia? The sad answer to the last question is instructive about the economic ones too.When a border closes down, it does not open again easily even if the conditions that caused its closure are largely reversed. This is a safe lesson from Europe's recent experience. Take, for example, Austria, which closed its border with Italy following the rise of refugee arrivals in the summer of 2015. For a couple of years after that refugee wave had died out, the borders remained shut. Similarly with the borders along the Western Balkans. Why is this relevant to the question of whether increased central bank liquidity will ameliorate the effects of Covid-19 on the economy? To answer, we need to remind ourselves of what happened after the crash of 2008.There were two responses to the 2008 crisis that saved capitalism from total collapse: the gigantic injection of liquidity into the economy by central banks, the Fed above all else; and China, whose government took it upon itself intentionally to build up the greatest private credit bubble in history to replace the lost export demand by a stupendous investment boost. The Fed's and China's intervention succeeded in re-floating global finance and putting stock markets onto the path of their longest growth spurt. However, the world did not go back to its pre-2008 ways.Before 2008, Wall Street played a crucial role in recycling non-US surpluses that were the repercussion of American deficits into global investment funding. After 2008, the refloated Wall Street could not perform that task, channelling much of the abundant liquidity not to fixed capital investment but to share buy-backs and other asset purchases. The result was that the post-2008 economy is characterised by savings being permanently in excess of capital goods investment. Since savings are the supply of money and investment its demand, the permanent excess supply of money explains the permanently low, or negative, interest rates. It also explains the downward pressure on median wages against a background of rising asset prices causing unbearable inequality and thus producing the political triumphs of xenophobic nationalism.In precisely the same way that the increased liquidity after 2008 failed to rebalance savings and investment globally, so will any renewed monetary "easing" to counter the ill effects of Covid-19 fail to return the global economy to its pre-February state. Of course, as happened after 2008, speculators will make a mint and nationalist forces will milk the ensuing discontent for all its worth.
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| Washington State mulling mandatory measures to contain coronavirus Posted: 08 Mar 2020 07:39 AM PDT |
| Grand Princess passengers prepare to disembark, quarantine; 'Don't get on a cruise,' health official advises Posted: 08 Mar 2020 05:31 PM PDT  Grand Princess passengers ready to disembark Monday, while health official Anthony Fauci urges, "Just don't get on a cruise ship" to protect elderly.
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| What happens to delegates after a candidate drops out?: Yahoo News Explains Posted: 08 Mar 2020 08:00 AM PDT  Following Super Tuesday, two front runners have emerged in the Democratic presidential primary — Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Now, Sanders and Biden must compete for the 1,991 delegates needed to secure the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in July. However, more than 100 delegates have already been pledged to candidates who have dropped out of the race. So, what happens to them? Yahoo News Senior Editor Will Rahn explains.
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| Europe’s Longest-Serving Leader Now Wants His Own Church Posted: 07 Mar 2020 09:00 PM PST |
| Finland pulled troops from an Arctic military exercise with the US and 8 other countries over coronavirus concerns Posted: 08 Mar 2020 02:55 PM PDT  A soldier at a military camp in Norway tested positive for the coronavirus, but that's the only person who has, Norway's military says.
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| Argentina announces first coronavirus death in Latin America Posted: 07 Mar 2020 04:07 PM PST  A 64-year-old man died in Argentina as a result of the new coronavirus, the first such death in Latin America, health authorities announced Saturday. The Ministry of Health said the patient lived in Buenos Aires and had been confirmed with COVID-19 after coming down with a cough, fever and sore throat following a recent trip to Europe.
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| Saudi seals off Shiite region, halts travel over coronavirus Posted: 08 Mar 2020 05:26 PM PDT  Saudi Arabia on Sunday cordoned off an oil-rich Shiite stronghold, suspended air and sea travel to nine countries and closed schools and universities, in a series of measures to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus. The lockdown on Qatif, an eastern area that is home to around 500,000 people, is the first action of its kind across the Gulf region, which has confirmed more than 230 coronavirus cases -- most of them people returning from religious pilgrimages to Shiite-majority Iran. Given the kingdom's 11 recorded cases of the new coronavirus are from Qatif, "it has been decided to temporarily suspend entry and exit" from the area, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
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| U.S. conservative leader had contact with coronavirus case at conference Posted: 08 Mar 2020 02:03 PM PDT  WASHINGTON/WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - The organizer of a large gathering of prominent U.S. conservative politicians and activists said on Sunday he had some "incidental" contact with an attendee who has since tested positive for coronavirus, but that he felt "healthy as a horse" and had not heard of anyone else falling ill. "I had incidental contact with him very briefly," American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp told Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends Weekend." President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence also attended the gathering in late February, but Schlapp confirmed that neither had contact with the person infected by the virus.
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| We shouldn't have to pay for Jack Dorsey's $40m estate when it crumbles into the sea Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:11 AM PDT  By using public money to protect California homes from climate change, the state is transferring wealth from working-class people of color to white property owners Even by the standards of overpriced San Francisco, the Sea Cliff neighborhood is astronomically expensive. Nestled between two gorgeous parks and with what a realtor might describe as commanding views of the Golden Gate, it could hardly be different. Homes in the area routinely go for more than $10m. Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and the payment service Square, recently bought a place here for $21.5m – next door to his $18m present home. The 0.62 acre compound is recessed from the street and perched on a cliff overlooking the beach.And that's where things get interesting, because cliffside living has become an increasingly risky proposition in California. Warming ocean temperatures are whipping up stronger surfs and more brutal winter storms, causing cliffs to crumble ever faster into the sea. The consequences for thousands of cliff-top houses such as Dorsey's could be catastrophic. Still, @Jack's bet isn't a bad one: depending on when the house goes over the edge, it might well be the rest of us that gets stuck with the bill.That's because most of the cost of protecting California properties from coastal erosion, wildfires and other effects of the climate crisis will be met by the state, with public money. This means those costs won't fall on the disproportionately white and wealthy people who own property. Rather, they'll be increasingly borne by the working- and middle-class Hispanic, black and brown Californians that make up the majority of the state, many of whom don't own real estate. Without really grappling with this reality, the state is slipping step by step towards a massive wealth transfer from the general public to the owners of private property. It's one more way in which the climate crisis is also a crisis of racism and inequality.What Sea Cliff could look like in a few years' time can be glimpsed in the town of Pacifica, 14 miles to the south. Parts of the town, which is much more middle-class than Sea Cliff, sit directly on beautiful bluffs that overlook – and are tumbling into – the Pacific Ocean. When the town's mayor proposed a "managed retreat" from the coast, home owners and local realtors revolted: the proposal would have effectively taken their homes off the market, cutting them off from potential profits. (Owners does not mean residents: about a third of Pacifica's housing stock, including many of the most threatened buildings, consists of rental units.) So instead of a managed retreat, the city is taking money from the public coffers and using it to protect property investments by building sea walls and replenishing eroding beaches with trucked-in sand, among other measures.This is a dynamic we've seen throughout the late capitalist economy. The sociologist Ulrich Beck described it as a change from "a logic of wealth distribution" to one of "risk distribution". Profits are privatized, but risk is made public. The banks made a bunch of bad bets on crappy mortgage debts? Bail them out with public money and give the executives multimillion-dollar bonuses. Someone half bakes a fundamentally unprofitable tech business? Let them IPO it so they can liquidate hundreds of millions of dollars of stock options while transferring the ultimately worthless company into the hands of public pension funds and workers' 401ks.That's the same thing that is now happening in California, where the land is uniquely threatened and at the same time uniquely valuable. There is a concerted political effort not to manage the risk, but rather to keep it from impacting value by making the public bear the costs of the climate crisis through things such as the sorts of publicly funded disaster relief programs and state-subsidized insurance payouts that Jack Dorsey could theoretically benefit from. This is, in fact, what many of the owners of capital and real estate think the government is for: protecting the value of private property at all costs. It's one of the reasons we have a climate crisis – instead of a robust, rapid transition away from fossil fuels – in the first place.The sheer immensity of the climate crisis, and of California, ensures that more and more of the costs will be borne by the public. The LA Times estimates that $150bn in California property might be impacted by coastal flooding and erosion by 2100. That's $150bn in private wealth which the government has made it a public priority to preserve. But those costs are dwarfed by the risks created by the region's intensifying wildfires, which threaten millions of properties around the state. The financial response to wildfires so far shows how these risks will inevitably be collectivized.It will go something like this: as houses become astronomically expensive, insurance payouts become astronomically large. In response, in threatened areas, private insurers will cancel coverage, or multiply rates to the point of unaffordability. The state will be forced to step in to stabilize the rates, and keep the land valuable, which will likely involve something like the National Flood Insurance Program, which subsidizes flood insurance provided by private insurers and underwrites the full extent of their losses.The racist dimension to this wealth transfer must not be overlooked. Fewer than 55% of California households own their dwelling and only 42% of Latino households and 33% of black ones do. Non-urban space, open space, and at-risk space in California is today particularly white, or at least white-owned.Especially in the sorts of rural areas threatened by wildfire, that disparity is highly dependent on California's history of racial violence and exclusion. The genocide of California's first peoples; restrictions on the citizenship status of Asian immigrants; the seizure of Japanese American land during the second world war; the arrogation of land for infrastructure projects in the postwar period; discriminatory lending practices, racial covenants and other racist real estate policies, perpetuated by de facto segregation – all worked to ensure that non-white property ownership in rural California has remained low and concentrated in dense cities.All of this creates an unjust mismatch: the collective that is underwriting the risk of climate catastrophe is not the same as the group that is incurring it. As a result, the siphoning off of public wealth to protect private property favors white Californians.Of course, that's one of the reasons it's been politically acceptable. It would be difficult to imagine the government sanctioning a massive wealth transfer in the other direction, for example by relieving the mortgage debts of the black and brown Americans who were the primary victims of the subprime crisis. But when fire and other types of home insurance markets fail, as they are already beginning to do and inevitably will, the state will have to step in to shore up the largely white property market with black, brown, working and middle-class public money.As the incalculably large price tag of climate change comes due, those excluded from the property market will increasingly foot the bill for California's cult of the homeowner. It remains to be seen whether that cult will endure, or whether the state can rethink its relationship to real estate.
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| 'The Only Choice Is to Wait for Death' Posted: 07 Mar 2020 07:22 AM PST  IDLIB, Syria -- Before the war in Syria, Idlib city, with its tree-lined avenues and white-stone buildings, was known for its calm, provincial air.Today it overflows with families who fled the war in other parts of Syria, swelling the population to nearly 1 million people.Some shelter in bombed-out buildings. Those who can't find shelter are camped in the soccer stadium, and more line up outside for food handouts.Residents are so used to the shelling that no one even flinches at the sound of an explosion.But for Syria's last rebel-held city the worst is yet to come.To the north, nearly 1 million people are living along roadsides and in olive groves in what is already one of the worst humanitarian disasters of Syria's brutal nine-year war.To the south and east, Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes are closing in, now just 5 miles away. When they reach Idlib city, its million residents are likely to flee, doubling the number of displaced people in the north.Dr. Hikmat al-Khatib, an orthopedic surgeon, urged his parents to move to a town to the north. But when it was bombed his mother decided to stay put."Her words shocked me," al-Khatib said. "The only choice is to wait for death."I made a rare visit into Idlib with a photographer and interpreter on Wednesday, crossing the border from Turkey. We were accompanied by relief workers of a Syrian charity and members of a jihadist rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which controls the province.We found 100 families camped in the stadium, which has been converted into an emergency shelter.Amina Sahloul was sitting on the floor around a stove in a large underground room for women and children. She had arrived hours earlier, after fleeing her village in the dead of night, clinging with her five grandchildren behind her son on a single motorcycle."We came away because of the airstrikes," she said. "They started dropping cluster bombs. It was like fire raining in the sky."There has been no letup for the people of Idlib province as the forces of President Bashar Assad of Syria, backed by Russian air power, have smashed their way forward, demolishing towns and villages in the south and east of the province with punishing airstrikes.A cease-fire declared Thursday by Turkey, which backs Syrian opposition forces, and Russia, which backs the Syrian government, seemed to be holding on Friday but few believe it will last. Assad has insisted he will continue his offensive to retake Idlib province, and rebel groups have vowed to resist.At the soccer stadium, as word came across the radio that Russian planes were near, tension rose as people nervously scanned the skies.Earlier that day, when an artillery shell slammed into a nearby neighborhood, few people even looked up. The Syrian government fires rockets all the time.But when Russian planes begin a concerted assault, they use overwhelming force, laying down lines of repressive fire that force people to run for their lives with only minutes to get away."Whenever I hear planes I start running like crazy, I lose my mind," Hassan Yousufi said as he paced angrily around the men's shelter in the stadium. "I lived beside the highway for 45 years. I memorized the Quran and was just biding my own life. My brother was killed. The Russians bombed us."Outside of the stadium, life is on a war footing. The streets are busy with cars and motorcycles and women walk together in the main shopping street, but the city has only two hours of electricity a day and boys sell gasoline in plastic jerrycans on street corners.Idlib province has been free from government control for the length of the war and today is largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group. But there were few armed fighters in sight in Idlib city, the provincial capital, on Wednesday.Police officers loyal to the opposition stand guard outside the governor's office and the police station which still bear the scars of fighting from the first days of the revolution.Billboards around the city bear glossy posters of uniformed rebel fighters, calling on people to join the fight."It is your turn to heed the call," reads one. "There is no honor without jihad," urges another, beside a military checkpoint.Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, has been designated a terrorist group by the United Nations but recently allowed Western journalists into Idlib in cooperation with Turkey, which has wanted to build international pressure against Russia and Syria.On the front lines to the south and east, the rebels, by their own account, have taken a pounding."In the last one-and-a-half months we had a collapse," said Abu Ahmed Muhammad, an HTS spokesman. But he added that the Syrian government had lost many more soldiers than the opposition had, and had to bring in Iranian-backed fighters to retake the strategic town of Saraqib, which has changed hands several times in the last two weeks.Hours before Russia and Turkey agreed to the cease-fire, he warned that nothing would come of it."Both sides will escalate," he said "We in the HTS factions will never accept to de-escalate because the Russians are on top and they may not agree to a peace settlement."But most of the province's three million people are civilians, and they are desperate for an end to the violence. They cling to the hope that Turkey's growing deployment of troops into the province will stop the onslaught."Anything that makes us feel secure or takes the regime away from us is a very good thing," said Abdul Razzaq, the head of the emergency relief for the Syrian charity, Violet. His teams were still helping people flee villages on the front line and preparing in case of a mass evacuation of the city. "But Idlib city is huge and where to take them?" he said.An hour's drive north of the city, blue and white tents pockmark the rocky hillsides and olive groves of the border area. Camps for thousands of displaced families sprouted up from the early days of the war and over the years have turned into settlements of concrete-block housing, built with foreign assistance.Hundreds of thousands more people have joined them in the last six weeks, pitching tents beside the roads and among the rocky limestone outcrops in a densely crowded strip along the Turkish border. Families are sheltering in mosques and schools, empty stores and factories.Even those are not safe. A woman who gave her name as Umm Abdul fled her village three months ago and took refuge with her family in an old brick factory outside the town of Maaret Misrin. On Monday, she was out picking herbs with two of her children when she heard a sound like birds and looked up to see two missiles tumbling out of the sky toward her."I lay the kids on the ground and covered them with my body," she said. "They say if you lie down you don't get hit by shrapnel."She was knocked unconscious and her 18-month-old daughter was wounded but all three survived.At an emergency shelter near the Turkish border, Alia Abras, 37, pushed forward to speak. "Do you know the meaning of displacement?" she asked. "You are like stray dogs."Rescuers took two-and-a-half hours to dig her and her three children out of the rubble of their home in the town of Ariha a month ago, she said. It was the middle of the night but they were left on the street beside their ruined home because there were others still to be rescued. The whole neighborhood around the main hospital had been hit."We spent two days sitting in the street," she said until Violet's rescue team found them and brought them to the shelter, which houses 45 families in a shopping center in the town of Sarmada."I wish I had died under the ruins and my children with me," she said. "We lost everything my husband and I spent our lives building up. We are at zero."In a camp called Al Nasr, new arrivals have pitched tents just yards from the concrete wall topped with rolls of barbed wire that marks the Turkish border. Some are already building breeze-block houses on a hill facing Turkey.Four families were squeezed into one tent set up on top of the camp sewer. They had no other option, they said. Behind the tent, sewage drained down the hill into a fetid pool."No one else would take it," said Hannah al-Mijan, a farmworker and mother of seven. "We do not have money to build."The family had been displaced twice and without work they had fallen into debt. "We are below zero," she said. Her husband, Muhammad, shushed her, telling her not to shame them.This time they chose to live within 100 yards of the border wall. Were they not scared that this place would also be bombed?Al-Mijan shook her head, and gestured at the hill opposite. "That's Turkey," she said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Italy Locks Down Rich North as Conte Tries to Contain Panic Posted: 08 Mar 2020 12:55 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte tried to contain the alarm spreading through Europe's fourth-biggest economy, unveiling drastic measures in the middle of the night to restrict the spread of the deadly coronavirus.In a hastily convened news conference Sunday morning, the head of a government already hanging by a thread said that Italy will dramatically restrict movement and activity for a quarter of its population in the economic powerhouse that is the region around Milan.As news of the measures leaked, some Italians gave their reactions. Images and posts on social media showed people rushing to get on the last train out and escape a virtual lockdown amid some of the most sweeping anti-virus measures outside China. Schools have already been shut as tourism has ground to a halt and businesses take a hit in a country already on the brink of recession.Conte's latest effort at damage control comes as cases surged to 5,883 on Saturday with 233 deaths, and as Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of one of the two major government parties, announced he had contracted the illness.Yet the premier's late appearance, and his criticism of "unacceptable" leaks, did little to dispel concern that this was a government with a tenuous grasp of a rapidly evolving national emergency. Conte said he would take "political responsibility" for managing the crisis.Market Reaction?A key test of whether he succeeded will come Monday, when investors will assess the impact of his actions on Italy's already weakened economy.Spreads between Italian and German bonds have crept up since the coronavirus crisis erupted but have so far remained below the average of the past year. A spike in yields would put a further strain on Italy's debt just as the government prepares to widen the deficit to prop up the economy.Conte's announcement came after an early draft of the new rules did the rounds and sparked confusion. Images abounded of Italians crowding trains from Milan and the north to make their way south before restrictions came into force. Train travel between northern and southern Italy appeared normal Sunday morning.The regulations are set to come into force "within hours," Conte said. They are to last until April 3, according to the draft seen by Bloomberg. A final text is still to be published.The bans will stop anyone from entering or exiting the most-affected areas, while movement inside will be allowed only for demonstrable business or health reasons, the draft said. Skiing, public events, religious ceremonies and work meetings will be suspended, while schools, museums, swimming pools and theaters will close.Bars and restaurants will have to make sure patrons keep at least one meter apart or they'll be shut. The decree specifies that failing to respect the measures is a criminal offense, and might lead to imprisonment. Police and the army will be responsible for ensuring that containment measures are respected.Some of the affected regions began signaling their resistance on Sunday morning. The Veneto region opposes the inclusion of the Padua, Treviso and Venice provinces in the decree, according to a statement published by Ansa. Maurizio Rasero, the mayor of Asti, which is in the affected zone, called the ban "madness, a disaster we didn't expect."About 16 million people will be affected by restrictions across Lombardy and in 14 provinces around cities including Venice, Modena, Parma, Rimini and Treviso. A large part of the Piedmont region is also affected but not Turin, the regional capital and the headquarters of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV.A second decree with new containment rules for the rest of the country recommends citizens avoid travel outside their hometowns unless absolutely necessary, and restricts public events from demonstrations to theater shows.With Italy's economy already about to contract before the outbreak, the crisis has all but paralyzed business activity in Lombardy -- which accounts for a fifth of the country's gross domestic product -- and the rest of the north, Italy's economic engine.The government decided on Thursday to double emergency spending to 7.5 billion euros ($8.5 billion) to help cushion the economic impact of the virus.It's also calling up 20,000 doctors, nurses and medical personnel to help deal with the outbreak. Fallout from the virus's spread is slamming Italy's key tourism industry at a time when the country is already teetering on the brink of recession.The European Commission's top economic officials approved Italy's spending plans, saying in a letter to the government in Rome that its stimulus plans won't be factored in when assessing the country's compliance with the European Union's fiscal rules.(Updates with Veneto region reaction in 12th paragraph.)\--With assistance from Daniele Lepido, Tommaso Ebhardt, Alessandro Speciale, Sonia Sirletti and Ross Larsen.To contact the reporters on this story: Alberto Brambilla in Milan at abrambilla5@bloomberg.net;John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net;Alessandro Speciale in Rome at aspeciale@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Flavia Krause-Jackson, James AmottFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| The US military operates a fleet of modified civilian Boeing and Gulfstream VIP private jets — here's what they do Posted: 08 Mar 2020 05:57 AM PDT  The military is one of the most robust operators of private jet aircraft, tasked with flying precious cargo vital to the national interest.
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| AP sources: Inmate fatally beaten at US prison in Illinois Posted: 06 Mar 2020 07:06 PM PST |
| Quarter of Italians on lockdown as virus sweeps globe Posted: 08 Mar 2020 02:18 PM PDT  A quarter of Italy's population was in lockdown Sunday as the government announced a spike in deaths, with infections soaring past 7,000, overtaking South Korea as the country with the highest number of cases after China. Italy's COVID-19 death count nearly tripled from 133 to 366 and infections rose by a single-day record from 1,492 to 7,375. Italy's measures, in place until April 3, bar people from entering or leaving vast areas of the north, according to a decree published online.
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