News Headlines: January 2020

Friday, January 31, 2020

The U.S. Interior Department Grounds All of Its Chinese-Made Drones

If it was made in China—or uses Chinese parts—it ain't flying.

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Japan Issues Warrants for Taylor, Others Aiding Ghosn Flight

(Bloomberg) -- Prosecutors in Tokyo issued a fresh warrant on Thursday for the arrest of ex-Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn, who jumped bail and fled the country last month to escape trial for alleged financial crimes.The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office issued the warrant on Ghosn for illegally departing Japan, where the former auto executive was charged with failing to fully report his compensation and using company money for personal gain.Ghosn, 65, who made his way in a private jet to Lebanon at the end of December, held a news conference the week after he arrived, lashing out at Japan’s prosecutors for what he called a “rigged” criminal justice system. The Justice Ministry has pushed back, issuing government statements and using news conferences and interviews to defend the country. Japan Sees Nothing Wrong With Justice System Ghosn Called Rigged“Without obtaining permission to travel abroad, suspect Ghosn boarded a private jet at Kansai International Airport at around 11 p.m. on Dec. 29, with the intent of traveling to Lebanon via Turkey, illegally leaving the country,” prosecutors said in the statement.Prosecutors also issued a warrant for the arrest of American Michael Taylor, 59, a former U.S. Green Beret special forces soldier, and George-Antoine Zayek, 60, a former Christian militia fighter from Lebanon, for allegedly aiding Ghosn’s escape. They are also seeking the arrest of a newly identified suspect thought to have aided Ghosn, Peter Maxwell Taylor, 26.The Tokyo Job: Inside Carlos Ghosn’s Escape to BeirutThe three are suspected of helping Ghosn in making his way to a Tokyo hotel, and then to the airport and onto the plane using various methods to prevent him from being detected, prosecutors said in their statement.Earlier this month, prosecutors also issued an arrest warrant for Carole Ghosn, the fugitive executive’s wife, for allegedly giving false testimony in court last April.The former Nissan chair is believed to have left Japan apparently concealed in an equipment case aboard a charter jet bound for Turkey en route to Lebanon, where Carlos Ghosn holds citizenship. Ghosn has maintained his innocence and defended his decision to flee Japan, saying that he couldn’t get a fair trial in the country.(Updates with details from prosecutors’ statement in fourth paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Chester Dawson in Southfield at cdawson54@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net, Reed Stevenson, Jon HerskovitzFor 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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More than 6,000 people are trapped on a cruise ship in Italy after a woman was suspected of having the coronavirus

Passengers of a Costa Cruises cruise ship can't disembark. Two passengers, one of whom was experiencing coronavirus symptoms, were quarantined.

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Pakistan: No immediate plans to evacuate citizens from China

A top Pakistani health official said Thursday that Islamabad had no immediate plan to evacuate any of some 30,000 nationals living in China to study and work, despite the new coronavirus that surfaced there. Zafar Mirza, who advises Prime Minister Imran Khan on health issues, told a news conference that so far only four Pakistani students in China have been diagnosed with the new virus and their conditions are listed as stable. China has been largely praised for its response to the outbreak.

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Remain in Mexico: 80% of migrants in Trump policy are victims of violence

Asylum seekers sent to Mexico to wait US court hearings under Trump scheme routinely targeted for abduction, survey findsA staggering 80% of asylum seekers sent to Mexico to await US court hearings report being victims of violence, according a survey by Doctors Without Borders (MSF).In one month – October – three-quarters of asylum seekers seen by MSF physicians in Nuevo Laredo reported having been kidnapped for ransom, according to the figures released on Wednesday.Some 44% of MSF patients also reported having been victims of violence in the week leading up to their consultations.Wednesday marked the first anniversary of a scheme officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), under which migrants seeking asylum in the United States are sent to Mexico to wait as their cases wind their way through US courts.Under the scheme, also known as “remain in Mexico”, more than 57,000 non-Mexican asylum seekers have been sent to wait in cities along the border – many of which have been plagued by drug-war violence for years.Migrants – who stand out because of their appearance and accents – are routinely targeted for abduction outside migration offices and bus terminals, and held until relatives back home wire ransom payments to the kidnappers.“The US continues to send asylum seekers back into danger and into the hands of the cartels that control the migration routes in Mexico,” said Sergio Martín, MSF general coordinator in Mexico.“The Mexican government lacks the ability to provide the most minimum of conditions for thousands of people who are being sent to its territory,” he said.Migrants are at risk along the entire border, “but mainly in places like Nuevo Laredo, where there is serious violence – and migrants are ‘merchandise’ for organised crime,” Martín said.Nuevo Laredo is considered so insecure that the US government has issued a Level 4: “Do not travel” alert to its citizens for the city and surrounding state of Tamaulipas – the same as war-torn countries like Syria and Afghanistan.The Cartel del Noreste – an offshoot of the blood thirsty Zetas cartel – “operates a sophisticated kidnapping business that targets asylum seekers – many of whom are women and children – who enter the city,” said Stephanie Leutert, director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the Strauss Center at the University of Texas.“The kidnappers charge several thousand dollars for each kidnapped asylum seeker and operate with almost complete impunity.”The Mexican government promised to provide asylum seekers with shelter, work permits and access to health services, but observers say many of the migrants have been left to fend for themselves.On Wednesday, the US department of homeland security announced that the scheme would be expanded to include Brazilians. Brazilian arrivals at the border have tripled in the past year.

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‘You know your client is guilty’: Trump impeachment lawyer’s defence accused of ‘descent into madness’

Senator Adam Schiff, lead impeachment manager in the Senate trial of Donald Trump, has called arguments made by the president’s defence team a “descent into constitutional madness”.Mr Schiff’s indignation with the president’s defence came in response to comments made by Mr Trump’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, who argued his client couldn’t be impeached for an action he thought might get him re-elected.

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Bernie Sanders told Ninth Graders the U.S. Committed Acts in Vietnam ‘Almost as Bad as what Hitler Did’

During his 1972 gubernatorial run, Senator Bernie Sanders told high-school students that the U.S. had committed acts in its war with Vietnam that were "almost as bad as what Hitler did."An article in the Rutland, Vermont, newspaper, The Rutland Herald, reported on the comments, made while Sanders was campaigning for governor as a member of the Liberty Union party. The article was first unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon.The North Vietnamese "are not my enemy," Sanders told a class of ninth graders in Rutland while on the campaign trail. "They're a very, very poor people. Some of them don't have shoes. They eat rice when they can get it. And they have been fighting for the freedom of their country for 25 years. They can hardly fight back."The American death toll from the Vietnam War was over 58,000. The Herald reported that students pushed back against Sanders's support for amnesty for draft evaders, saying it wouldn't be fair to the parents of soldiers killed in the fighting.Sanders also outlined other positions that may sound familiar to today's voters, including increasing the minimum wage and availability of low-income housing, as well as increased access to dental care. He also charged that the Democratic Party was too beholden to large corporations.The Vermont senator received around one percent of the vote in that election. Sanders is currently the strongest presidential candidate from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and has polled ahead of moderate Joe Biden in various Iowa and New Hampshire surveys.Establishment Democrats have been worried by Sanders's rise and durability throughout the primary. The senator has relied on an enthusiastic base of younger progressive voters, and has received strong grassroots financial support.

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Boris Johnson’s Plan to Kill ‘Brexit’

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Shortly after his election victory in December, it was reported that Boris Johnson wanted the word “Brexit” retired. Not just retired, but expunged as a matter of urgency once the U.K. has left the European Union on Jan. 31.This would be like Donald Trump telling White House staff that they need to drop the “Make America Great Again” thing. Without Brexit — and his “Get Brexit Done” campaign — we’d mainly know Boris Johnson as just another former mayor, a talented politician who wrote amusing newspaper columns.This attempted change of language seems trivial, but it’s not. For nearly four years, the neologism “Brexit” has dominated British politics, and resonated around the world. Why try to retire it now? I can see two reasons: The word is a constant and powerful reminder of the division and open wounds in British society; and while it was a weapon Johnson wielded successfully against his opponents, it might easily be used against him in future. The first concern is honorable, the other more Orwellian. But how successful Johnson is in changing the language of British politics might prove as important as anything he gets around the trade negotiating table with the European Union and the U.S. this year.The word “Brexit” appeared back in 2012. Peter Wilding, a former lawyer and aide to former Prime Minister David Cameron, had little idea of its impact when he coined it in a May 2012 blog, inspired by the Greeks:Unless a clear view is pushed that Britain must lead in Europe at the very least to achieve the completion of the Single Market, then the portmanteau for Greek euro exit [Grexit] might be followed by another sad word, Brexit.A few years later, it spread like bush fire. By 2016, it had a place in the Oxford English Dictionary and was later named “word of the year.” But Wilding was appalled to find his invention used as a tool of destruction. Now chairman of the British Influence think tank, he sees Brexit as a “narcissistic victim syndrome ignited by charlatan nostalgists.” He has said it might do to Britain what the Treaty of Versailles did to Germany.Brexit, in Johnson’s hands, wasn’t a flaccid noun but a powerful verb. One might argue that you could have called Britain’s EU departure campaign pretty much anything and the result would have been the same. Perhaps, but something happened when those two words — British exit — fused. It became a rallying point for a passionate, but small, euroskeptic core of Johnson’s ruling Conservative party. It anchored a Leave campaign whose language invoked national pride, appealed to people’s bias for action over inaction and their preference for simplicity.In his book, “The Language of Brexit,” the linguist Steve Buckledee shows how skillfully this was done. Brexit stirred passion and represented action; Remainer language was limp by comparison and passive. The British Twitter poet Brian Bilston captured the power of the word in the last stanzas of a poem titled Meaningful Vote, which was the name given to the attempts of Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, to win parliamentary approval for her Brexit deal:How foolish, it seems; How senseless, absurd,To re-define a nation In pursuit of a word.Johnson, of all politicians, understands the mobilizing and seducing power of language. He’s probably the most prolix (and prolific) political leader Britain has had since Winston Churchill. He loves words that pack heat. He famously denied an affair by calling the allegations an “inverted pyramid of piffle.” He often invents words where a conventional formula won’t do — such as “backstop-ectomy” to denote his determination to remove an element of May’s Brexit deal known as the Irish backstop, which he and other Brexiters disliked.But now that the war is over, the weapon looks unsightly. Brexit represents a heroic and victorious campaign for freedom to one side of the divide, but a perfidious act of self-harm to the other. RELATED: Why Brexit Opponents Lost the Vote and the ArgumentEven many Brexiters are battle-weary and spent, no doubt worried about how well things will go from here for Britain. Hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, a vocal Brexiter, is holding back on the mirth. Sarah Vine, the columnist wife of cabinet member Michael Gove, says being on the winning side has left her numb. “I think, like many Leave voters the length and breadth of the country, I have found the hatred and vitriol of the past few years ultimately very brutalizing,” she wrote for the Daily Mail (not exactly a bastion of temperateness). “We Leavers have been accused of innumerable crimes, cast as racist, short-sighted, xenophobic and, above all, thick and uneducated. We’ve been compared to the Nazis, been blamed for the actions of every lunatic extremist, accused of lying — not to mention held responsible for every stock market fluctuation (downwards, naturally) or passing economic squall.” If that’s how the victors feel, spare a thought for the losers. Johnson won the war, but he won’t succeed in keeping his new Conservative coalition together (which includes plenty of Remain voters who were fearful of allowing Labour’s hard-left leader Jeremy Corbyn into power) if the loaded language of Brexit frames all discussion.But burying “Brexit,” the word, is a way of shirking responsibility too. If everything that happens from now is just another tick on the plus or minus side of the Brexit ledger, the divisions will eventually tear away at Johnson’s power and every concession over fish or drop in GDP growth will be seen as an indictment of the Brexit campaign that swept him into Downing Street.By getting rid of the Department for Exiting the EU and rechristening the U.K. negotiating side something positive like Taskforce Europe, Johnson is saying “nothing to see here but some tedious trade negotiations.” Why should voters worry about such minutia as will be discussed when Britain and the EU sit down to work out their future trade relationship? If the word “Brexit” is a call to battle, “trade taskforce” is an invitation to snooze. That must be the hope, anyhow: That if Brexit is only muttered occasionally, somewhat apologetically, or better yet, not said at all, there will be less scrutiny — and criticism — of what lies ahead. Separating Britain from the EU is bound to be painful. Johnson’s ultimate political survival may depend on whether he can denuclearize the domestic conflict he waged so successfully with Wilding’s B-bomb.To contact the author of this story: Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Therese Raphael writes editorials on European politics and economics for Bloomberg Opinion. She was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Hungary to build more prisons to tackle overcrowding, halt inmates' lawsuits

Hungary will begin an ambitious prison-building program in an attempt to stem a tide of costly lawsuits by inmates complaining of overcrowding and inhumane conditions, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday. Orban accused "business-savvy lawyers" of exploiting the conditions to launch 12,000 lawsuits against the Hungarian state for breaking EU prison standards, leading to penalties of 10 billion forints ($33 million) in total. Orban, who has often come under fire from the European Union and rights groups over his perceived erosion of the rule of law since he took power in 2010, announced plans for more prisons to reduce the prison overcrowding and disarm "malignant lawyers".

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China virus toll passes 250 as travel curbs tightened

The death toll from China's coronavirus outbreak has surpassed 250, the government said Saturday, as foreign nations tightened restrictions on travellers from China in response to the rapid spread of the illness. At least 258 people have died and more than 11,000 people have been infected in China by the new coronavirus, according to new figures from officials in hard-hit Hubei province. The top Communist Party official in Wuhan, the central city of 11 million people where the virus first emerged in December, on Friday expressed "remorse" because local authorities acted too slowly.

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Iraq says joint operations with US-led coalition resume

Joint military operations with the U.S.-led coalition to counter the Islamic State group have resumed after a nearly three-week pause, an Iraqi military statement said Thursday. Meanwhile, anti-government protesters called for 1 million Iraqis to take to the streets Friday in what they said was a “last chance” for the protest movement to build on momentum gained after followers of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr packed up and left last week. The pause in joint anti-IS operations came amid heightened tensions after a Washington-led airstrike killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad.

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A New and Controversial U.S. Nuclear Weapon Goes to Sea

The missile submarine USS Tennessee is the first to deploy with the W76-2 warhead.

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FOX NEWS: Trump administration declares public health emergency over coronavirus outbreak, restricts US entry

Trump administration declares public health emergency over coronavirus outbreak, restricts US entry

Foreign nationals who have traveled to China within the last 14 days will be temporarily denied entry into the U.S.; Jonathan Serrie reports from Atlanta.

Lori Vallow didn't meet the Thursday deadline to turn her kids over to the state. Their grandma believes the 'monster' will face consequences.

Vallow had until Thursday to turn her children over to the state of Idaho. She missed it and is believed to still be in Hawaii.

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U.S. coronavirus evacuee from China placed under quarantine order after trying to flee base

One of 195 Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, to a U.S. air base in California to begin 72 hours of voluntary observation for signs of coronavirus infection was placed under mandatory quarantine after trying to leave the facility, public health officials said on Thursday. The individual, whose identity was not disclosed, was presented the quarantine order on Wednesday night, hours after arriving at March Air Reserve Base near Los Angeles on a government-chartered flight from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, officials from the Riverside County Public Health Department said.

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Brexit finally arrives Friday: A momentous yet quiet moment

A few Union Jack flags will be lowered from European Union buildings in Brussels, more will be waved in jubilation by Brexiteers in London at the moment of Britain's departure — at 11 p.m. in the U.K., midnight in much of the EU (2300 GMT). Britain and the bloc fought tooth and nail for the best part of four years — with insults flying across the English Channel — over the terms of their divorce. Now, on the eve of one of the most significant events in European Union history, the political eruptions have ceased and an uneasy quiet reigns: the calm before the next storm.

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Britain Is Finally Leaving the European Union Today. Here's What Will Change

It's Brexit day on Jan. 31

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Bernie Sanders is starting to get slammed on how he would finance Medicare for All

The attacks on Medicare for All echo what Sen. Elizabeth Warren faced last year as she surged ahead in national polls.

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U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency Over Coronavirus Fears

Federal officials declared a public health emergency and will be restricting entry into the United States in light of the 2019 novel coronavirus that has killed at least 200 people and infected nearly 10,000 more worldwide. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters Friday that President Trump would sign a proclamation temporarily suspending entry to foreign nationals deemed to pose a transmission risk.Azar also said any U.S. citizen who traveled to China's Hubei province within the past 14 days before arriving home would be subjected two weeks of mandatory quarantine. And citizens who traveled to any other regions in China would undergo a “proactive entry health screen” and 14 days of monitored self-quarantine.“The risk for infections for Americans remains low,” Azar said, adding that these steps were “measured” reactions that would help officials deal with “unknowns” surrounding the virus.Earlier Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said they were putting 195 people who recently returned from China under quarantine for two weeks, dubbing it an “unprecedented” step that was now warranted.“We are preparing as this is the next pandemic, but hopeful this is not and will not be the case,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on a call with reporters. “We would rather be remembered for overreacting to under-reacting.”The move came after one of those recently-returned travelers reportedly attempted to leave the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California, after arriving from Wuhan, China. The CDC declined to provide more information on the individual. There are currently over 9,800 cases of coronavirus in China, while the number of confirmed cases in the United States remained steady at six. Only one, the husband of a woman who recently traveled abroad, had been spread in-country, the CDC said previously. No one had died as a result of infection in the United States by the CDC's latest count.But Messonnier pointed to the most recent number of cases in China, which she said represented a 26 percent increase over Thursday's numbers, as a cause for growing vigilance. She also mentioned an increasing number of reports of person-to-person spread, including growing evidence that the 2019 novel coronavirus can be spread by people who have not yet experienced symptoms. The New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday released a study describing a case in Germany that appeared to show the spread of the virus from a person who traveled to China to several others.“The current scenario is a cause for concern,” Messonnier said.WHO Calls Coronavirus ‘Emergency’ as Person-to-Person Spread Confirmed in U.S.When asked if the coronavirus were more dangerous than the flu, Messonnier said there appeared to be “significant mortality related with this disease” based on cases coming out of China. However, she still didn't recommend face masks for the general public and urged people to stay calm.“Please do not let fear guide your actions,” she said, adding that the public shouldn't assume Asian Americans have the virus amid reports of surging xenophobia against people of Chinese descent worldwide. “There are about 4 million Chinese-Americans in this country.”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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Alibaba billionaire Jack Ma, China's richest man, pledged $14.5 million to fight the coronavirus

The money will be donated through Ma's charitable foundation, which will use it to help medical research efforts and disease prevention.

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Biden Claims Trump’s Trial is ‘Not a Partisan Impeachment’ While Clinton’s Was

Former vice president Joe Biden argued Friday that President Trump was not subject to “a partisan impeachment” even if no Republicans vote to remove him from office, while simultaneously defending his resistance to “a partisan impeachment” during Bill Clinton’s 1998 trial.Biden, speaking from Iowa, was challenged in an interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos over comments he had made in Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. “No president should be removed from office, merely because one party enjoys a commanding lead in either house of Congress,” Biden said at the time.Stephanopoulos then asked the former vice president why a partisan impeachment was no longer wrong, to which Biden replied “it’s not partisan impeachment.” After Stephanopoulos pushed back and pointed out that no Republicans in the House had voted to impeach the president, Biden insisted that the Constitution had been violated, and that those voting against impeachment were denying the facts.“That’s the issue — was the Constitution violated? Period,” Biden stated. “Even if it’s a party-line vote, it just reflects on those who know, in fact, in their heart and in their head, that it’s in fact a violation of the Constitution to do what he did, and in fact vote no.”> Joe Biden on doing a 180 on opposing “a partisan impeachment”: “This is not a partisan impeachment” pic.twitter.com/iaSRDloVWu> > -- Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 31, 2020Biden then attempted to clarify why a party-line vote in impeachment did not count as partisan.“That’s a party-line vote, but that doesn’t make it right,” Biden said of lack of Republican support for Trump’s impeachment. “A party-line vote that is based upon something that doesn’t relate to a Constitutional violation is a different thing.”Several key Republican Senators announced their intentions on the vote for further witnesses and documents late Thursday night, with Senator Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) saying that Trump’s actions were “inappropriate,” but that “the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.”

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Chinese planes to bring overseas Wuhan citizens back to virus-hit city

China sent two planes to Malaysia and Thailand on Friday to bring "stranded" Hubei province residents back to the virus-stricken city of Wuhan, authorities said. The Xiamen Airlines flights will pick up the Chinese nationals from Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia and the Thai capital Bangkok, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

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7,000 People Trapped on Mediterranean Cruise in Italy Over Suspected Coronavirus Case

ROME—More than 7,000 people were quarantined on an Italian cruise ship in the Mediterranean port of Civitavecchia outside of Rome after a Chinese woman from Hong Kong came down with a fever and symptoms that mimic the coronavirus. Initial tests seemed to exclude the deadly virus, according to Italian media, but passengers were expected to be kept onboard overnight as a precaution. A second round of tests late Thursday completely excluded contagion, and Italy’s health authorities gave the green light for passengers to disembark. But as of Thursday evening, the mayor of Civitavecchia refused to authorize any passengers to get off the ship. Tourism operators, suddenly confronted with a new nightmare scenario tied to the virus, scrambled to address fears of an outbreak on a cruise ship. “We have no information, the internet inside the ship isn’t working, and we can’t get news. But above all we take meals together in the common areas, and we don’t know if someone is infected,” Liborio Iervolino, a cruise passenger from Puglia said. ‘There are no disposable dishes and in the rooms, the televisions only broadcast advertisements. We would like to see the news and understand what is happening.”The Costa Smerelda, the fifth-largest cruise ship in the world and the flagship of an Italian company best known for the 2011 crash of the Costa Concordia on Tuscan island of Giglio, departed from Savona, Italy, on Jan. 25 with 6,000 passengers and 1,000 crew onboard. The massive, 19-deck vessel made stops in Marseilles, Barcelona, and Palma de Mallorca before docking in Civitavecchia on Thursday. It was scheduled to return to Savona for the Feb. 1 end of the cruise. But passengers who had lined up for a Rome excursion or to disembark at its penultimate stop were told to stay on the ship after medics in full hazmat suits boarded the vessel Thursday morning to check on a female Chinese patient in her fifties who was in the ship’s hospital. The woman, along with her asymptomatic husband and the medical team who treated her during the voyage, are being held in isolation on the ship. Samples from the woman were sent to the Lazzaro Spallanzani infectious disease hospital in Rome to be tested. Citizens of the port town of Civitavecchia have gone to the port to protest the disembarkation of 1,143 passengers whose voyage was scheduled to end in their town. “All the protocols are being followed and we will keep the case constantly monitored,” Civitavecchia’s mayor, Ernesto Tedesco, told worried citizens as he threatened to sue the cruise company if they disembarked before the full test results were back.The Costa company confirmed to The Daily Beast that the couple were among more than 750 Chinese or Hong Kong passengers on the voyage. Of those, 351 embarked on Jan. 25 in Savona along with the sick passenger, while others got on at the ship’s various ports of call in Spain and France. The couple arrived in Italy for the Jan. 25 embarkation on a flight from Hong Kong to Milan’s Malpensa airport, which means if the woman is confirmed to have the virus, health officials will then begin tracing anyone who flew with her, since the virus can be contagious even before symptoms show. A Costa representative would not confirm when the woman first reported being sick.“The situation is under control and at the moment there are no reasons for concern on board,” Italian Coast Guard Commander Vincenzo Leone said in a statement Thursday.Passengers reached by The Daily Beast via social media say they were not told directly that the woman was suspected of carrying the virus, but were told to alert crew members if they were sick with fever or respiratory conditions. Several passengers have tweeted that they should have been told earlier in the voyage that they might be at risk. Many complained that they were not given face masks or rubber gloves to prevent infection.Teens Are Now Claiming They Have Coronavirus for Tik Tok CloutRead 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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Thursday, January 30, 2020

Parnas Lawyer: Giuliani Delivered Graham Letter Calling for Sanctions on Ukrainian Officials

In late 2018, Rudy Giuliani said he delivered an unusual missive to Sen. Lindsey Graham, according to the lawyer of one of his ex-associates: a letter calling for sanctions on a host of Ukrainian government officials, including one widely viewed in the West as a brave reformer and another who helmed the company where Hunter Biden was a board member.Joseph Bondy, the attorney for Lev Parnas, an indicted Florida businessman involved in the U.S.-Ukraine saga, told The Daily Beast that Giuliani showed his client the letter and told him he delivered it to Sen. Graham (the letter misspelled the South Carolina Republican’s first name as “Lingsey”). Bondy said Giuliani also showed Parnas a second, similar letter addressed to Sigal Mandelker, who at the time was a top official at the Treasury Department. The letters, which The Daily Beast reviewed, claim that an eclectic mix of Ukrainian political figures and businesspeople were part of an alleged “organized crime syndicate.” The letters claim that the individuals were “actively involved in the siphoning of funds appropriated by the American government for aid to Ukraine.” And they claim that the alleged crime syndicate used those funds to buy black-market military parts from a Russian company under U.S. sanctions. All the while, they say, Ukraine’s then-prosecutor general (Giuliani ally Yuriy Lutsenko) couldn’t fight the crime because then President Petro Poroshenko wouldn’t let him take the case to court.“It concerns me, as should any fellow American, that a taxpayer’s money is rudely been stolen in Ukraine [sic],” reads the letter to Mandelker.The letter-writer introduces himself in the letter addressed to Mandelker as a Ukraine-born U.S. citizen named Michael Guralnik who graduated from the Soviet Military Academy and was “a 10-year veteran of the Soviet Army.” The letter to Graham, meanwhile, also bears Guralnik’s name but contains no introduction. It arrived a month before Giuliani tried to help former Ukrainian top prosecutor Viktor Shokin travel to the U.S. and meet with Graham, Bondy said. A few weeks before the date of the Guralnik letter, Giuliani sent Graham a letter of his own asking his staff to help three unnamed Ukrainians get visas so they could come to the U.S. and share information about the Bidens. The State Department did not give Shokin a visa. The letters say that the “only way” to “stop this syndicate” is to sanction the individuals involved. Both letters list 12 people, along with phone numbers for some of them. Included on the list are Mykola Zlochevskiy, the head of the scandal-plagued Ukrainian company where Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden was a board member; Valeriya Gontareva, the head of the National Bank of Ukraine from mid-2014 to mid-2017; and Kateryna Rozhkova, who was her deputy. Graham and Giuliani did not respond to repeated requests for comment, and it was not immediately clear if lawmakers ever even considered the sanctions. A spokesperson for Graham did not respond to a request for comment. Mandelker did not comment on the record for this report. When contacted, Guralnik hung up the phone and texted, “Do not call any more.”The inclusion of Gontareva and Rozhkova’s names is notable. In 2016, Gontareva oversaw the Ukrainian government’s decision to seize control of a bank that belonged to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. Ukrainian officials alleged that Kolomoisky and his allies had misappropriated billions from the bank. Kolomoisky has pushed to regain control of the bank, even as the FBI has investigated him for financial crimes. And in the wake of her decision, Gontareva has faced death threats and danger. Her home was vandalized, and someone left a coffin with her likeness inside it outside the Central Bank offices, as The Washington Post reported. Years after the nationalization of the bank, the danger persists. In August 2019, she was hit by a car in London and hospitalized. The next month, her home in Ukraine was burned down, per the Kyiv Post. Gontareva’s fight to reform Ukraine’s financial sector won her devoted allies in the West, who saw her as one of Kyiv’s few genuine reformers. Kolomoisky, meanwhile, is an intimidating figure to many in Ukraine, and some have alleged he has ordered contract killings. He also funded a private militia that fought Russian-backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine. His connection to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also long raised eyebrows; the TV show that boosted Zelensky’s public profile aired on a TV channel that Kolomoisky owns, and one of Kolomoisky’s former lawyers is now a senior aide to Zelensky (Giuliani and U.S. officials have raised concerns with Zelensky’s team about that aide, Andriy Bohdan). Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the government watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Daily Beast that the Guralnik letters mean Giuliani should answer more questions about his Ukraine work.“While we can’t obviously speak to the veracity of these claims, it does seem to look more and more like Rudy Giuliani is incredibly deeply involved with some seriously shady business in Ukraine and we need more information, not only on his activities, but his activities and those of his associates on behalf of or benefiting Donald Trump,” he said. “As bad as these things look on their face, they’re so much worse if you consider the involvement of the president of the United States. There is so little we know, but enough to know that we need to know a lot more.” 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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Fotis Dulos, who is accused of killing his wife, is in critical condition after an apparent suicide attempt

Farmington Police found Fotis Dulos unresponsive while conducting a welfare check Tuesday, after he failed to show up for a court date.

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Here's what the White House letter about Bolton's book really means

What appeared to be a White House bid to stop former national security adviser John Bolton from publishing his book, which may have explosive claims about his interactions with President Trump, is really just a standard letter regarding classification review, according to legal experts.

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Here are all the states where you have to register as a Democrat to vote in the presidential primary

In states with closed primaries, you must be registered as a Democrat to vote in the Democratic presidential primary.

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House Democrats’ Super Pac Raises $32.8 Million in Second Half

(Bloomberg) -- The super PAC that backs House Democrats raised $32.8 million in the second half of 2019 and ended the year with $37.7 million cash on hand, according to its filing with the Federal Election Commission.The biggest contribution to the House Majority PAC was from Michael Bloomberg, who gave $10 million in December. Bloomberg, who’s also spending hundreds of millions of dollars on his presidential campaign, is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.Longtime Democratic donor Fred Eychaner gave the super PAC $4 million, and hedge-fund operator S. Donald Sussman gave $2 million. Billionaire Haim Saban and real estate developer George Marcus each gave $1 million, while Joshua Bekenstein of Bain Capital gave $900,000.This post is part of Campaign Update, our live coverage from the 2020 campaign trail.To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Allison in Washington DC at ballison14@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max BerleyFor 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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‘You know your client is guilty’: Trump impeachment lawyer’s defence accused of being ‘descent into madness’

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Greta Thunberg nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Swedish MPs

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and the global protest movement "Fridays for Future" were nominated Thursday for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize by two Swedish lawmakers. "Greta Thunberg is a climate activist, and the main reason she deserves the Nobel Peace Prize is that despite her young age, she has worked hard to make politicians open their eyes to the climate crisis," Left Party parliamentarians Jens Holm and Hakan Svenneling wrote in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

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WRAPUP 2-Pilots, flight attendants demand flights to China stop as virus fear mount worldwide

CHICAGO/PARIS Jan 30 (Reuters) - Pilots and flight attendants are demanding airlines stop flights to China as health officials declare a global emergency over the rapidly spreading coronavirus, with American Airlines' pilots filing a lawsuit seeking an immediate halt. China has reported nearly 10,000 cases and 213 deaths, but the virus has spread to 18 countries often by plane passengers. The Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents American Airlines pilots, cited "serious, and in many ways still unknown, health threats posed by the coronavirus" in a lawsuit filed in Texas, where the airline is based.

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Estranged husband accused of killing Jennifer Dulos dies

Fotis Dulos, 52, had been hospitalized since Tuesday when he was found at his home in Farmington, Connecticut, following an apparent suicide attempt. “It's been a truly horrific day for the family filled with difficult decisions, medical tests and meeting the requirements to determine death," attorney Norm Pattis said. “To those who contend that Mr. Dulos' death reflects a consciousness of guilt, we say no," he added.

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Lou Dobbs accidentally included himself in his Bolton 'tool for the left' conspiracy

"It's a totally upside-down world" for John Bolton, said Sen. Chris Von Hollen (D-Md.), one of the Democrats who recently called President Trump's former national security adviser a "warmonger" and now wants him to testify under oath. as the star witness in Trump's impeachment trial.On the other side, some of "Bolton's longtime Republican friends are just as abruptly tossing him to the curb, painting him as a disgruntled former adviser who just wants to sell books," writes Peter Baker at The New York Times. "Some of the same senators who allied with him, promoted his career, consulted with him on foreign affairs, and took his political action committee money are going along as he is painted as 'a tool for the radical Dems and the deep state,'" as Fox Business host and former Bolton fan Lou Dobbs said Monday night.Dobbs showed some confusing charts trying to connect Bolton, a Republican stalwart and hardline national security conservative, to various figures Dobbs also distrusts, like Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). The charts link Romney to Bolton and Trump's current national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, for example, but don't connect Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his twin brother. But in tarring "Bolton as a tool of the president's enemies," Baker notes, Dobbs also cited as proof that Bolton "used the same literary agents as James B. Comey the FBI director fired by Mr. Trump — prompting one of the literary agents to point out that one of their other clients was Mr. Dobbs," among other conservatives.> Dear @LouDobbs, you forgot to list some other notable @JavelinDC clients: Don Rumsfeld, Tucker, numerous GOP officeholders, @mikepillsbury, conservative organizations, oh, and you! Are you part of the conspiracy? https://t.co/nZdaNvkkMW> > — Matt Latimer (@matt_latimer) January 28, 2020Whether or not Dobbs is also a "tool for the left," Bolton "still wants a future in Republican politics," Baker reports, citing Bolton's friend. "He also remains as contemptuous of Democrats as ever and has not explicitly expressed support for impeachment or conviction." So maybe the world isn't so upside-down after all.More stories from theweek.com Mitch McConnell's rare blunder John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi 7 witheringly funny cartoons about the GOP's John Bolton problem

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7,000 People Trapped on Mediterranean Cruise in Italy Over Suspected Coronavirus Case

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Missing link in rare inherited skin disease exposed

Hokkaido University scientists are getting closer to understanding how a rare hereditary disease impairs the skin's barrier function, which determines how well the skin is protected.

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How the human brain solves complex decision-making problems

A new study on meta reinforcement learning algorithms helps us understand how the human brain learns to adapt to complexity and uncertainty when learning and making decisions. A research team succeeded in discovering both a computational and neural mechanism for human meta reinforcement learning, opening up the possibility of porting key elements of human intelligence into artificial intelligence algorithms. This study provides a glimpse into how it might ultimately use computational models to reverse engineer human reinforcement learning.

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FOX NEWS: Officials confirm first US human-to-human transmission of coronavirus

Officials confirm first US human-to-human transmission of coronavirus

The coronavirus patient is the husband of a Chicago traveler who became ill shortly after returning from Wuhan, China; Jonathan Serrie reports.

FOX NEWS: How is coronavirus transmitted?

How is coronavirus transmitted?

Since it was first reported in China last month, the deadly coronavirus has spread to more than a dozen countries, with more than 7,800 cases reported and 170 deaths.

Navy SEAL Promoted After Choking Green Beret to Death

The U.S. Navy promoted Chief Petty Officer Tony DeDolph four months after he admitted to choking a Green Beret to death. DeDolph—who will be back in court Thursday for a preliminary hearing—was formally charged in November 2018 with felony murder, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, burglary, hazing, and involuntary manslaughter in the strangulation death of Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar, a Special Forces soldier assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group.Melgar was nearing the end of his deployment when he was killed in the West African nation of Mali in June 2017. He was part of an intelligence operation in Mali supporting counterterrorism efforts against al Qaeda’s local affiliate, known as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.Days after Melgar was strangled, DeDolph, at the time a petty officer first class, was sent back to his base in Virginia Beach under suspicion of murder. Despite that, DeDolph found himself on the promotion list for chief petty officer in August 2017; he was “frocked”—meaning he began wearing the insignia of the higher rank—on Sept. 15, 2017, according to defense officials. He didn’t start drawing chief’s pay until December.Slain Green Beret’s Widow Speaks: ‘I Knew They Were Lying’Three days before DeDolph’s promotion, the medical examiner’s report was signed. It concluded, based on a June 8, 2017, autopsy at Dover Air Force Base, that Melgar’s cause of death was asphyxiation and the manner of death was homicide, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Beast.A defense official familiar with the case said Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as Seal Team 6, didn’t flag DeDolph because he was not formally charged or a person of interest in an ongoing investigation. He was a participant in the investigation but no charges were filed until November 2018.Retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, the former commander of Special Operations Command-Africa, told The Daily Beast this week that he authorized an investigation after he learned of Melgar’s death. Bolduc alerted Army Criminal Investigation Command and told commanders in Mali to preserve evidence. He didn’t understand why DeDolph was promoted when he returned to his unit in Virginia Beach.“It is another failure of leadership,” Bolduc said. “I mean senior leadership. It’s unfortunate. He should have never been promoted. The investigation was started right away. They whisked them out of there as fast as they could.”When asked if he was surprised by the news, Bolduc said no.“I’m disappointed,” he said. “But not surprised. It’s utter bullshit.”Navy prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Garcia declined to comment on the promotion because DeDolph is part of an ongoing investigation.“DeDolph has remained a member of Naval Special Warfare throughout this process,” said Navy Capt. Tamara Lawrence, a spokeswoman for Naval Special Warfare. “It is paramount that the rights of the service member are protected, thus any additional information regarding this case will not be discussed.”Phil Stackhouse, DeDolph's civilian attorney, did not return calls or text messages seeking comment. Melgar’s widow, Michelle, declined to comment on the story.DeDolph’s case is just one of several high-profile incidents that have exposed issues in the SEAL culture. Members of SEAL Team 7 were expelled from Iraq in 2019 after allegations of drinking and sexual assault. Six SEALs tested positive for cocaine last year. Then there’s the case of Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Gallagher, a former member of SEAL Team 7, who faced a court martial for war crimes charges including murder, but was convicted of posing for a picture with a dead body and granted clemency by President Trump in November 2019. Trump Tells Allies He Wants Absolved War Criminals to Campaign for HimSome of the same issues were present in Mali, where there was widespread alcohol use, partying, and prostitutes at the safehouse, according to sources familiar with the investigation. “It was like a frat house,” one source said, when asked to describe what the safe house in Bamako was like. In response to the recent incidents, Rear Adm. Collin Green, head of Naval Special Warfare Command, sent a memo last year to his subordinate units declaring the whole SEAL community has a problem.“Some of our subordinate formations have failed to maintain good order and discipline and as a result and for good reason, our NSW culture is being questioned,” Green wrote in the July 2019 memo. “I don’t know yet if we have a culture problem, I do know that we have a good order and discipline problem that must be addressed immediately.”Gen. Richard Clarke, the head of Special Operations Command, ordered an ethics review last August following several high-profile incidents. He acknowledged in a memo to service members on Tuesday that “unacceptable conduct” had been allowed to occur as a result of “lack of leadership, discipline and accountability.” The 71-page report summing up the ethics review warned of what Clarke described as an emphasis on “force employment and mission accomplishment over the routine activities that ensure leadership, accountability, and discipline.”Chief Petty Officer Adam C. Matthews, who was in Mali doing an assessment of the mission there, testified in August he felt it was his duty to haze Melgar—on DeDolph’s recommendation—to teach him a lesson after Melgar “ditched” the team in Mali’s capital city of Bamako on his way to a party at the French embassy. Investigator of Green Beret’s Murder Had Romantic Relationship With Witness, Lawyer SaysDeDolph, Matthews and two Marine Raiders—Gunnery Sgt. Mario Madera-Rodriguez and Staff Sgt. Kevin Maxwell—spent the rest of the night plotting to choke Melgar into unconsciousness, pull his pants down and videotape the incident and then show it to him later to embarrass him. When Melgar became unresponsive, Matthews and DeDolph tried to resuscitate Melgar with CPR and opened a hole in his throat. The SEALS with Sergeant First Class James Morris, Melgar’s supervisor, then rushed Melgar to a French medical facility, where he was pronounced dead. At the clinic, DeDolph admitted to an embassy official he choked Melgar, according to NBC News and subsequent reports.Maxwell and Matthews have already pleaded guilty in exchange for plea agreements with prosecutors. Matthews, 33, pleaded guilty to hazing and assault charges and attempts to cover up what happened to Melgar. He was sentenced in May 2019 to one year in military prison. Maxwell, 29, was sentenced to four years of confinement after pleading guilty in connection with Melgar’s death in June 2019.DeDolph and Madera-Rodriguez are the last of the four men who carried out the attack to stand trial. Both men are expected to face courts martial this spring. An exact date has not been selected, according to Navy officials.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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Biden Says He's Getting Old—So His VP Should Be 'Capable of Immediately Being a President'

'I'm an old guy,' Biden admitted.

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Trial Date Set for Jeffrey Epstein Jail Guards

Two Manhattan jail guards charged with falsifying records after Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell will face trial in June, a federal judge ruled Thursday.Tova Noel, 31, and Michael Thomas, 41, who worked inside Metropolitan Correctional Center’s (MCC) Special Housing Unit, are accused of failing to conduct mandated checks on inmates in the hours before the multi-millionaire sex-offender killed himself in August 2019. Both corrections officers have pleaded not guilty.In Manhattan federal court on Thursday, defense lawyers asked to delay the trial until October—a request U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres promptly denied. Torres set a trial date for June 22, despite the protestations of Noel’s lawyer, Jason Foy, who said the schedule would interfere with his family vacation. The defense attorneys also requested a later date because of what they described as “voluminous” discovery materials, including some they said they hadn’t received. “It’s necessary,” Foy told the court. “This isn’t about us laying back and taking our time.”Thomas’ attorney, Montell Figgins, added, “It took the federal government 90 days to investigate … it’s going to take us more than 90 days to do the same amount of work.”Indictment Against Jail Guards Reveals News Details From Jeffrey Epstein’s Final HoursFiggins also told Judge Torres he’d likely file a motion to dismiss the indictment due to selective prosecution, and that he needed to obtain a report from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General which, along with the FBI and Bureau of Prisons, was tasked with investigating Epstein’s death in a federal facility.Prosecutors had argued against delaying the trial—previously slated for April—which they said will last a week. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Lonergan said the facts in the criminal case only relate to a 14-hour period of time. “This is a very focused, single-incident indictment,” Lonergan said, adding that broader working conditions at MCC were “just not relevant.”Foy disagreed, saying MCC’s environs and alleged failures in security measures “are directly related” to his client’s case. (Both guards were working overtime shifts, and the union representing the officers told The Daily Beast that MCC is constantly understaffed, forcing some guards to work “mandatory overtime” shifts totaling 16 to 18 hours.)After Thursday’s court appearance, Figgins told reporters that the feds “want to put my client in jail for the same conduct that’s happening with other officers on a daily basis.” He said Thomas is on leave without pay pending an administrative hearing.He said his selective prosecution defense will center around the fact that other corrections officers within the Bureau of Prisons system, outside of the Epstein case, have also fallen short with required checks but without criminal consequences.The Bureau of Prisons allowed guards to work nearly 24 hours straight, creating a system where guards could fall asleep on the job, Figgins claimed; guards might end a shift only to be told they couldn’t go home for another eight hours because of staff shortages. “How can they allow that type of work to go on and not expect something like that [Epstein’s death] to happen?” he said.“Now when a billionaire dies, they want to make [Noel and Thomas] a scapegoat,” Figgins continued. He pointed out Noel and Thomas weren’t the only officers working the night before Epstein died; a lieutenant had to sign off on paperwork for their rounds, and a control room held other guards, too. “Why are these the only people charged?” Figgins asked.Last November, federal prosecutors charged Noel and Thomas each with one count of conspiring to defraud the United States. Noel is also charged with five counts of making false records, while Thomas was slapped with three counts of making false records. According to prosecutors, the corrections officers face five years in prison for each count of the charges.Prosecutors say the guards never conducted their mandated checks on inmates, including Epstein, on the night he hanged himself. “Instead, for substantial portions of their shifts, Noel and Thomas sat at their desk, browsed the internet, and moved around the common area of the SHU [Special Housing Unit],” the indictment alleged. “To conceal their failure to perform their duties, Noel and Thomas repeatedly signed false certifications attesting to having conducted multiple counts of inmates when, in truth and in fact, they never conducted such counts.”Epstein was found dead in his cell around 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10—one month after he was arrested for trafficking minor girls. He’d previously attempted to hang himself on July 23, officials said, but was taken off suicide watch after 24 hours. He was under psychological observation until July 30. Later in August, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd said a jail psychologist removed Epstein from suicide watch. In a letter to the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Boyd said “a doctoral-level psychologist” had “determined that a suicide watch was no longer warranted.”According to the indictment, no SHU guards conducted counts from about 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 9 until Epstein’s body was discovered the next morning. Both Noel and Thomas had been working overtime shifts the day Epstein died. A cellmate of the multi-millionaire had been transferred out of MCC on Aug. 9, and “despite the MCC’s psychological staff’s direction that Epstein have a cellmate, no new cellmate was assigned to Epstein's cell,” the indictment stated.Noel worked a shift from 4 p.m. on Aug. 9 to 8 a.m. on Aug. 10, while Thomas started his shift at 12 a.m. on Aug. 10. They were the only corrections officers on duty in the Special Housing Unit from 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Aug. 10, prosecutors say.The guards were collectively responsible for two prisoner checks on Aug. 9, at 4 p.m. and 10 p.m., as well as three checks on Aug. 10, at 12 a.m., 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.When a supervisor who’d just gotten to work responded to an alarm that went off in MCC at 6:33 a.m. on Aug. 10, Noel allegedly announced, “Epstein hung himself.” Noel was said to admit later, “We did not complete the 3 a.m. nor the 5 a.m. rounds.”“We messed up,” Thomas allegedly told a supervisor. “I messed up, she’s not to blame, we didn’t do any rounds.”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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US hits Iran with new sanctions, keeps some waivers in place

The Trump administration said Thursday that it will continue — at least for now — its policy of not sanctioning foreign companies that work with Iran's civilian nuclear program. Brian Hook, U.S. envoy to Iran, said the U.S. would renew for 60 days sanctions waivers that permit Russian, European and Chinese companies to continue to work on Iran's civilian nuclear facilities without running afoul of U.S. sanctions.

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Trump, trying to head off testimony, says Bolton would have started 'World War Six'

As pressure mounts on senators to allow John Bolton’s testimony in President Trump’s impeachment trial, the president used Twitter to trash his former national security adviser.

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So Long, Spitzer, You Were a Good Telescope and Friend

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Get us out of here, plead foreign students at China virus epicenter

Foreign students stuck in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of a coronavurus outbreak, are launching social media campaigns, making phone calls and writing letters urging their governments to get them out as soon as possible. Governments globally are grappling with the challenge of how to get their citizens out of China's Hubei province, where 60 million residents now live under virtual lockdown. Pakistan said that quarantine regulations prevented it from flying out the more than 500 Pakistani students and their families from Wuhan.

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Biden's campaign is reportedly seeking 'election-night alliances' with candidates who may not survive Iowa

Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign might be a little worried about Iowa.The first caucuses of the 2020 primary season are coming up in just four days, but Biden by no means has a lock on Iowa. So Biden's campaign is reaching out to lower-polling candidates in hopes of striking "election night alliances" to pick up their supporters if they don't make it past the first caucus ballots, Politico reports.Tom Steyer, the billionaire who's sitting at an average of 3.6 percent in the polls, was reportedly one of the targets of Biden's campaign. An aide to Steyer confirmed his campaign was approached by "multiple candidates," per Politico. Biden's team similarly talked with entrepreneur Andrew Yang's staffers, sources said. And three Biden staffers also "tentatively floated" a deal with a strategist for Sen. Amy Klobuchar's (D-Minn.) campaign, The New York Times reported earlier this week. All the campaigns told Politico they'd "rebuffed advances" from other candidates.Biden's second-tier strategy isn't unusual for the Iowa caucuses. The state's system allows people who've supported candidates "who fail to reach 15 percent support in a precinct on the first ballot" to chose someone else for the next ballot, which eventually chooses the state's delegates, Politico writes. Yet it also makes it clear that Biden's campaign knows the Iowa race is far from settled. Read more at Politico.More stories from theweek.com Mitch McConnell's rare blunder John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi 7 witheringly funny cartoons about the GOP's John Bolton problem

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Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Dylann Roof appeals death sentence for massacre at South Carolina black church

"Roof's crime was tragic, but this Court can have no confidence in the jury's verdict," says his appeal, filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday. A jury found Roof guilty of 33 federal charges, including hate crimes resulting in death, for the shocking mass shooting at the landmark Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in June 2015. Roof dismissed his defense attorneys just before trial and represented himself during jury selection.

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Police find mom of 2 missing kids in Hawaii with husband

Police say a mother of two missing kids has been found in Hawaii along with her new husband, but there’s still no sign of the children in the cross-country investigation, which includes several mysterious deaths.

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Syrian troops capture key town in rebel-held Idlib province

Syrian government forces captured one of the largest and most strategic rebel-held towns in the country's northwest, the Syrian military and opposition activists said Wednesday, part of a Russian-backed military assault that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people fleeing to safer areas. The town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province, which had been in rebel hands since 2012, sits on the highway linking Damascus with Aleppo and is considered critical to President Bashar Assad's forces. Its capture is the latest in a series of military triumphs for Assad.

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Tactical Flashlight

Friday, January 31, 2020

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Wednesday, January 29, 2020