| New US coronavirus case may be 1st from unknown origin Posted: 26 Feb 2020 05:37 PM PST |
| Trump campaign sues NY Times for defamation over Putin Posted: 26 Feb 2020 04:18 PM PST |
| Italy’s China Chill Runs Deeper Than Fears Over the Coronavirus Posted: 26 Feb 2020 04:01 PM PST |
| Johnson to Put U.K. on Collision Course With EU in Trade Talks Posted: 26 Feb 2020 03:17 PM PST |
| 'Fear and panic' as virus threatens Afghanistan, Pakistan Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:47 PM PST  With porous borders, creaking hospitals and large illiterate populations, Afghanistan and Pakistan face a potentially devastating health crisis after the new coronavirus erupted in neighbouring Iran. Islamabad has closed official border crossings while Kabul has suspended all travel to the Islamic republic, which has reported 19 deaths and a total of 139 infections -- making it one of the hardest hit countries outside the virus epicentre China. The virus has spread to more than 30 countries, killing over 2,700 and infecting 80,000, mostly in China.
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| US blacklists Iraqi Shiite paramilitary chief after base attacks Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:05 PM PST  The United States on Wednesday declared a powerful Iraqi Shiite paramilitary leader to be a terrorist after a series of rocket attacks, vowing to step up pressure on his ally Iran. The State Department listed Ahmad al-Hamidawi, secretary general of armed faction Kataib Hezbollah, as a "specially designated global terrorist," freezing any US assets he may hold and making US transactions with him a crime. The group as a whole, which has a close relationship with Iran, has been designated as a terrorist group by the United States since 2009.
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| Reports: Gagli, Molinari pull out of Oman over virus concern Posted: 26 Feb 2020 01:51 PM PST  Italian golfers Lorenzo Gagli and Edoardo Molinari have withdrawn from the Oman Open on the European Tour amid reports they are being isolated to determine if they have the virus spreading in Europe. Gagli tells Italian newspaper La Nazione that a European Tour doctor told him at breakfast Wednesday to return to his room. Molinari, his roommate for the week in Oman, was moved to another room.
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| Trump faces credibility test as he plays down virus threat Posted: 26 Feb 2020 01:24 PM PST  President Donald Trump faces a critical personal challenge in grappling with the new coronavirus outbreak: Asking Americans to believe him after he and some of his top advisers have contradicted federal scientists in playing down the threat. Keenly aware of the stakes not just for public health but also himself, Trump conducted a lengthy press conference Wednesday evening aimed at reassuring everyone that he has the crisis well in hand. Trump surrounded himself with his administration's top health experts.
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| US adds leader of Iraqi militia to terrorism blacklist Posted: 26 Feb 2020 01:04 PM PST |
| Trump campaign sues The New York Times over a 2019 Russia op-ed Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:36 PM PST  President Trump loves to threaten lawsuits against the media, but it looks like he's now actually filing one.The Trump campaign announced Wednesday it's suing The New York Times for libel over a 2019 opinion column, "The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo" by Max Frankel. In the op-ed, Frankel writes "there was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin's oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration's burdensome economic sanctions."The campaign's legal adviser claims these statements were "100 percent false and defamatory" and the Times "was aware of the falsity at the time it published them." Axios notes that to win this lawsuit, the campaign would need to prove the Times acted with "actual malice," which is usually a "high bar" to clear. As CNBC's Christina Wilkie wrote, the "suit claims the Times must've known the *March 2019* op-ed was false because of what was in the *April 2019* Mueller report."The Times said Wednesday the Trump campaign has "turned to the courts to try to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable." But "fortunately," the Times added, "the law protects the right of Americans to express their judgments and conclusions, especially about events of public importance."Trump has long threatened to sue media organizations for coverage he dislikes, but he generally hasn't ended up following through. As for why, The Washington Post explained in 2018 when Trump threatened to sue the Times over a story about his taxes that "he would be required as part of the discovery process to provide private financial documents that he has long resisted making public."This is something pundits noted on Wednesday, with The Daily Beast's Harry Siegel tweeting, "The Times has to be licking its lips thinking about discovery here if the suit gets that far."More stories from theweek.com Trump puts Pence in charge of coronavirus response Israel is the first country to warn its citizens not to travel abroad over coronavirus fears Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity
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| Pelosi urges Democratic unity amid Sanders' campaign surge Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:21 PM PST  Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday urged party unity amid Bernie Sanders' surge in the presidential race, even as House Democrats worry about a volatile election season that could put a self-described democratic socialist atop the ticket and threaten their majority. "I would hope that everyone would say, no matter who the nominee is for president, we wholeheartedly embrace that person," Pelosi, D-Calif., told the House Democratic caucus at a closed-door meeting. With South Carolina's primary on Saturday, followed by the Super Tuesday contests on March 3, House Democrats are navigating how best to hold onto their seats while opponents try to lasso them to Sanders' socialist label.
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| How can we prepare for the coronavirus? 3 questions answered Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:16 PM PST  Editor's note: Public health officials in the U.S. warned that the coronavirus, which has in large part spared the U.S., is coming and that the country needs to be prepared. But just what does this mean for you, as well as for public health officials? Aubree Gordon, public health scholar at the University of Michigan, explains. 1\. How do we prepare for something we can't predict?First and foremost, people need to be prepared for their daily life to be affected by public health measures that are put into place to try to limit the spread of the virus.This could be anything from relatively benign social distancing measures, such as canceling large gatherings, to measures that may have a larger impact on day-to-day life, such as school and business closures. It is also possible that people may be asked to remain in their homes for an extended period of time if there is a large outbreak in their local area, such as what has occurred in China. To prepare for this, it is best to have a two-week supply of food, personal hygiene items and sufficient supplies of any required prescription or nonprescription drugs. It is also important to keep copies of medical records for reference. 2\. The US has only 57 cases so far. Why might that increase?So far, all cases in the U.S. have been imported or directly connected to travel. That is, either someone came to the U.S. who was infected or had contact with someone who had recently traveled out of the country. To track down these cases, public health officials have been testing all travelers who present symptoms that have recently been to China, have been in contact with a recent traveler from China, where the outbreak started, or had contact with a confirmed case. People who tested positive have been isolated. In addition, travelers returning from locations of outbreaks have been asked to quarantine themselves in their houses or have been quarantined by the U.S. government for 14 days in order to prevent onward transmission in the event that they were infected but not yet showing symptoms. However, as the virus establishes itself in multiple countries, the U.S. will have more introductions, meaning that travelers will bring it into the U.S. from other countries. It is inevitable that we will miss some cases, which will result in community transmission in the U.S. In addition, right now public health systems are concentrating on testing individuals with connections to known outbreak locations or confirmed cases. Public health officials and medical personnel are looking for the cases in the most likely places, but that means that we may not detect cases early where we are not expecting them. U.S. officials will know this has happened if they detect a cluster of severe cases, at which point there likely will have been multiple rounds of transmission, and an outbreak will have begun. 3\. What has changed to make public health officials more worried?The outbreaks are now occurring in multiple countries. Also, the fact that there are multiple, concurrent outbreaks – and that public health officials do not know the scope of those outbreaks – is worrisome. As the virus spreads into more countries, particularly those with weaker health systems, it will become much harder to control the spread worldwide. As the number of cases increases in a location, the likelihood that someone who is traveling from that location is infected increases. And, this in turn, increases the probability of the virus being introduced into another location.For example, there had been very few cases of COVID-19 detected in Italy until Feb. 22, 2020, and they were all related to travel. However, a few days later, officials detected a cluster of COVID-19 cases. There was no clear link to travel in the confirmed cases, indicating that community transmission was occurring. Now, cases imported from Italy, either by Italian tourists or by citizens returning from Italy, have been detected in multiple countries. Likewise, Iran now has community transmission and has exported cases to multiple countries. In the coming weeks and months, this pattern will likely repeat itself in multiple locations.[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Airplanes spread diseases quickly – so maybe unvaccinated people shouldn't be allowed to fly * Coronavirus: We need to start preparing for the next viral outbreak nowAubree Gordon receives funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
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| Trump's coronavirus response is worse than incompetent Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:12 PM PST  The global spread of coronavirus is verging on pandemic status. While the rate of new infection appears to be slowing in China thanks to drastic mass quarantines and clampdowns on movement, other outbreaks in Iran, South Korea, and Italy have still not been controlled. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warned that an outbreak in the United States was probably just a matter of time.This could be the greatest crisis faced by President Trump. But not only is he obviously incapable of handling the problem, he has already done tremendous damage to America's pandemic response system. The United States is highly vulnerable to epidemic disease because the president is a corrupt, tyrannical moron who can't do the job.As I wrote earlier this week, Trump's model of governance is classic authoritarian corruption. He has stacked the bureaucracy with cronies whose only qualification is personal loyalty to Trump. He's recently charged a former college football quarterback with purging the civil service of Trump critics, and appointed Richard Grenell — a man with no intelligence experience who illegally lobbied for Hungary without registering as a foreign agent — as acting director of national intelligence.Now, Trump is responding to bad news about COVID-19 (WHO's more accurate name for coronavirus) in typical authoritarian fashion — with denial. In a tweet, he insisted the media was hyping the problem to bring down the stock market.> Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape! @CDCgov.....> > — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2020And this is consistent with the diseased propaganda that grips the brains of basically the entire Republican Party. Right-wing commentators are already pushing conspiracy theories about the outbreak, no doubt driven by fear that the disease will hurt Trump's reelection prospects — like some crackpot who falsely asserted COVID-19 is a Chinese bioweapon, which was then amplified by Ben Shapiro, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and the Trump administration itself. Others are suggesting that one CDC official is raising the alarm because she is the sister of former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (who was pushed out for insufficient fealty to Trump). On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh scoffed: "Yeah, I'm dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks," and asserted the media was hyping up the disease in an attempt to harm Trump. He said the fatality rate was a mere 2 percent, adding, "That's less than the flu, folks."Limbaugh's mostly elderly listeners might be interested to learn that the actual fatality rate for the normal flu is about 0.1 percent, and while the overall death rate for COVID-19 indeed seems to be about 2.3 percent, deaths are heavily concentrated among the old. An initial study found 8 percent of people between 70-79 who caught the virus died, and 15 percent of those over 80. At that rate, if just 10 percent of the American population caught the virus, about 750,000 people would die.All this makes an interesting contrast with Trump's behavior during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, when he accused the CDC of lying about how contagious the disease was, demanded that all U.S. citizens with the disease be left to die, and attacked President Obama for appointing a single person to coordinate the outbreak response (which did indeed bring it under control).But Trump's denial of the problem also goes way beyond rhetoric. Over the last two years, Trump has hacked away at the funding and agencies responsible for defending Americans from viral threats. As Laurie Garrett writes in Foreign Policy, back in 2018, Trump "fired the government's entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure." That same year the CDC cut its efforts to fight global diseases by 80 percent due to lack of funding. Trump's administration slashed funding for disease combat across the board, and eliminated a $30 million Complex Crisis Fund.His recent proposed budget would gut $3 billion in funding for health security. He would slash funding for State Department and USAID global health programs by a third, cut the CDC budget by 7 percent, cut the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria by 58 percent, and reduce U.S. contributions to the World Health Organization by half.He also has repeatedly proposed enormous cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and allowed states to throw thousands off the latter program. Republicans have systematically undermined and weakened ObamaCare, exacerbating a structural weakness to epidemics in American society — our garbage health care system. Tens of millions of Americans have no insurance and tens of millions of others cannot afford to use the coverage they do have — meaning many will hesitate to go to the doctor to get tested for fear of being gouged by rapacious medical providers. Indeed, a Florida man who caught the flu in China did the responsible thing and went to the hospital to be tested for COVID-19; when it came back negative, he was slapped with a $1,400 bill despite being insured.A major reason the coronavirus outbreak got out of hand in the first place is because of the Chinese government's inept initial response. They have since taken drastic action that while repressive, seems to finally be at least slowing the spread. The Chinese Communist Party may be corrupt and incompetent, but at least they are not gripped by delusional fruitcake propaganda and conspiracy theories.It remains to be seen whether or not America will actually suffer an outbreak. But if it does, even the brutal Chinese Communist methods of fighting one will be off the table. President Trump is simply too incompetent to manage that, or anything else. Any efforts to beat COVID-19 will have to be done in spite of the vacant, doddering lunatic at the center of American power.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com Trump puts Pence in charge of coronavirus response Israel is the first country to warn its citizens not to travel abroad over coronavirus fears Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity
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| Trump sues New York Times for libel over Russia interference story Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:01 PM PST  Donald Trump's re-election campaign has filed a libel lawsuit against the New York Times, accusing America's newspaper of record of intentionally publishing a false story last year about Russia's interference in the 2016 election.In the lawsuit, which the campaign annouced was filed in New York State Supreme Court on Wednesday, the campaign alleges that the Times published a false story on 27 March 2019 claiming that Mr Trump and his campaign had engaged in a deal with the allies of Russian president Vladimir Putin to help his campaign in 2016 in exhange for a pro-Russia policy once Mr Trump became president.
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| How Biden's Campaign Explains His 'Arrest' in South Africa Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:48 AM PST  CHARLESTON, S.C. -- At least three times this month, Joe Biden has asserted that he was arrested as he sought to visit the anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela in prison, even saying that Mandela later thanked him for going to such an effort.And for a week, Biden's campaign declined to answer questions seeking comment and clarification on those remarks, which were rebutted by a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in an article in The New York Times. Biden did not mention the episode in his memoir, had not spoken of it prominently on the campaign trail, and a review of available news accounts by The Times did not turn up any mention of an arrest.But Tuesday, Kate Bedingfield, a deputy campaign manager, said Biden was referring to an episode in which he was separated from black colleagues in Johannesburg while on a congressional delegation trip to South Africa in the 1970s. It was the campaign's first explanation to date -- but one that still left many questions unanswered and did not square with Biden's most recent remarks."He was separated from his party at the airport," Bedingfield said when pressed by reporters following Tuesday's presidential debate here.When a reporter noted that being separated did not constitute an arrest, she repeated: "It was a separation. They, he was not allowed to go through the same door that the -- the rest of the party he was with. Obviously, it was apartheid South Africa. There was a white door, there was a black door. He did not want to go through the white door and have the rest of the party go through the black door. He was separated. This was during a trip while they were there in Johannesburg."Bedingfield's account echoes comments Biden has made in the past, including in his 2013 statement marking Mandela's death -- but that is not what he has relayed most recently as he campaigned in Nevada and South Carolina, two diverse states."I had the great honor of meeting him," he said of Mandela, speaking in South Carolina earlier this month. "I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him" on Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned. Soweto is more than 700 miles away from Robben Island.Andrew Young, who was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1977 to 1979, told The Times that he had traveled with Biden to South Africa but had never been arrested there, and he cast doubt on the idea that members of Congress were arrested in the country."No, I was never arrested and I don't think he was, either," Young said in a telephone interview last week.Biden also said recently that when Mandela was released, the civil rights leader thanked Biden during a trip to Washington."After he got free and became president, he came to Washington and came to my office," Biden said of Mandela while speaking in Las Vegas. "He threw his arms around me and said, 'I want to say thank you.' I said, 'What are you thanking me for, Mr. President?' He said, 'You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me.'"Bedingfield said that "it was a reference to Mandela coming to D.C. after he was released from prison, he met with Senator Biden, thanked him for his work, his anti-apartheid work."She went on to cite Biden's "long record fighting apartheid" and said he was "one of the leading voices in the United States Senate in the '80s" on the issue.Although Biden has previously said that Mandela thanked him for his support of anti-apartheid sanctions, that was not his emphasis as he campaigned this month and spoke three times of being arrested.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| China slams US over 'attack' on its candidate to UN body Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:42 AM PST  A Chinese ambassador on Wednesday ripped into the U.S. for an "attack" on China's candidate to head a United Nations agency that monitors and tracks intellectual property like patents, trademarks and industrial designs — a lucrative and crucial part of the growing digital age. The comments by Chen Xu, China's ambassador in Geneva, laid bare rising tensions over an alleged U.S. campaign to prevent veteran WIPO official Weng Binyang from becoming director-general of the money-making agency that counts 192 member states.
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| Israel advises against foreign travel over virus concerns Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:38 AM PST |
| House makes lynching a federal crime, 65 years after Till Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:35 AM PST  Sixty-five years after 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi, the House has approved legislation designating lynching as a hate crime under federal law. The bill, introduced by Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush and named after Till, comes 120 years after Congress first considered anti-lynching legislation and after dozens of similar efforts were defeated. The Senate unanimously passed virtually identical legislation last year, although that bill wasn't named for Till.
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| As the coronavirus outbreak worsens outside of China, hopes of containing it are diminishing Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:27 AM PST  At least 40 deaths have been reported outside of mainland China. South Korea, Italy, and Iran have seen a dramatic spike in cases.
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| Pakistan confirms first two cases of coronavirus Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:26 AM PST  Pakistan has detected its first two cases of novel coronavirus, a public health advisor to Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted Wednesday, days after Islamabad closed its land border with Iran, where 19 people have died from the virus. Both cases are being taken care of according to clinical standard protocols & both of them are stable.
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| Heathrow Says Halting New Runway Would Be Financial Suicide Posted: 26 Feb 2020 09:36 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- London Heathrow airport stepped up its defense of a $20 billion third runway, saying a government decision to block the project would amount to "financial suicide" and hamper U.K. efforts to boost trade after Brexit.Chief Executive Officer John Holland-Kaye sees a larger Heathrow, opposed by campaigners and some politicians because of its environmental impact, as "essential for a global Britain." Thwarting the plan will only benefit competing economies such as France, he said in an interview on Wednesday.Paris Charles de Gaulle airport is already set to take the title of Europe's busiest hub from Heathrow within two years, the CEO said, with the London site unable to respond due to a lack of spare capacity.Heathrow's expansion is in doubt after Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who fought against the runway as London mayor, said earlier this month he saw no immediate prospect of the strip getting built. That's after he warned before December's election that the project had yet to satisfy legal obligations on noise and air pollution."You can't have a plan for trade deals with India and China without expanding Heathrow," Holland-Kaye said. "It doesn't compute. If goods and people aren't flying out of an expanded Heathrow they'll fly through Paris. You're taking back control with one hand and giving it back to the French with the other."Heathrow's bid to serve 142 million passengers a year -- up from almost 81 million now -- is in the balance despite winning the support of lawmakers in a 2018 vote. The new runway was also backed by a state-appointed commission that dismissed Johnson's own proposal for a new hub in the Thames estuary.While the prime minister recently backed the 100 billion-pound ($129 billion) HS2 high-speed rail project, he has continued to push back against Heathrow's plans. Asked on Feb. 11 if the runway would now go ahead, he said: "I see no bulldozers at present, nor any immediate prospect of them arriving."Holland-Kaye said opposition to enlarging Heathrow on environmental grounds is misplaced."CO2 is a big issue but there is no conflict in expanding flights if we can de-carbonize aviation," he said. "The idea that the answer is to stop flying and that India, China and the U.S. will follow suit is barmy."Heathrow's expansion faces a challenge Thursday when the Court of Appeal reviews the rejection of lawsuits from Friends of the Earth, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and other parties who say approval of the runway plan violated U.K. climate change policy and didn't take account of the Paris climate accord.Johnson's spokesman, James Slack, told reporters on Wednesday that the Heathrow runway "is a private-sector project," while reiterating that it must show it can meet air-quality and noise obligations "in order to proceed."(Updates with looming court decision in 10th paragraph, comment from Johnson spokesman in last)To contact the reporters on this story: Christopher Jasper in London at cjasper@bloomberg.net;Richard Weiss in Frankfurt at rweiss5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, John Bowker, Andrew NoëlFor 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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| On education, Sanders lauded for substance, knocked for cost Posted: 26 Feb 2020 09:23 AM PST  During the 2016 Democratic presidential race, when Bernie Sanders pushed making college free, it was seen as a radical idea from a fringe candidate. While his "Medicare for All" plan has generated much of the attention, Sanders is going beyond his earlier education proposals. Often a quiet issue in presidential campaigns, education has remained a focal point of Sanders' campaign.
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| Cyber police in virus-hit Iran arrest 24 over COVID-19 rumours Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:38 AM PST  Iranian cyber police on Wednesday announced the arrests of 24 people accused of online rumour-mongering about the spread of a coronavirus outbreak that has claimed 19 lives in the country. The Islamic republic is scrambling to contain COVID-19 a week after announcing the first two deaths in Qom, a centre for Islamic studies that draws pilgrims and scholars from abroad. International health experts have expressed concern about Iran's handling of the outbreak -- the deadliest for any country other than China.
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| UK must accept 'common' standards for deal with EU: Barnier Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:34 AM PST  The EU's chief negotiator with the UK, Michel Barnier, emphasised Wednesday that Britain must accept standards on a par with the bloc's if it wants a post-Brexit deal to kick in from next year. The British government insists that the whole point of Brexit was to free itself of EU rules, and it has declared that it will eschew European norms for its own set of standards. "We cannot take the risk that the UK becomes a kind of assembly hub for goods from all over the world, allowing them to enter the single market as 'British goods'," he said.
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| New cases of coronavirus in other countries exceeded those in China for the first time on Tuesday Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:28 AM PST  The coronavirus may be slowing down in China, but World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that it's no time for complacency.In a weekly briefing, Gehbreyesus had some good news about China, especially beyond the Hubei province, where the virus originated. There were reportedly only 10 new cases detected outside of Hubei on Tuesday. On the other hand, Tuesday was the first day in which the number of new cases in other countries exceeded the number in China, in large part because of rapid increases in countries like Iran, Italy, and South Korea. Outside of China, there are now 2,790 reported cases in 37 countries, and 44 deaths.Still, Gehbreyesus pointed out there's been progress in containing the virus' spread, as 14 of those countries haven't reported a new case in more than a week and nine haven't reported a new case in more than two weeks. Of course, that doesn't mean those countries are out of the woods, since more cases could eventually seep their way in, but it does signal the cases that had already made it to those countries have been contained. Read the rest of Gehbreyesus' address here.More stories from theweek.com Trump puts Pence in charge of coronavirus response Israel is the first country to warn its citizens not to travel abroad over coronavirus fears Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity
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| Bernie Sanders Boycotts Pro-Israel Americans Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:14 AM PST  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- With Bernie Sanders emerging as the front-runner to win his party's nomination, pro-Israel Americans must grapple with an uncomfortable question: Does the Democratic party still support the world's only Jewish state? What raises the question is next week's annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Sanders announced this week that he would not be attending, saying on Twitter: "I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights."At Tuesday night's debate, Sanders clarified that he was speaking about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "I'm very proud of being Jewish," he said. "I actually lived in Israel for some months. But what I happen to believe is that right now, sadly, tragically, in Israel, through Bibi Netanyahu, you have a reactionary racist who is now running that country."In other words, Sanders might deign to speak at the country's largest organization devoted to the U.S.-Israel relationship — but only if it shuns the man who Israelis have elected to lead their country for the last 10 years.This is not to say that Netanyahu is beyond reproach. Last year, he cynically accepted the help of an extremist party that favors ethnic cleansing, providing political legitimacy to what used to be a third rail in Israeli politics. AIPAC, along with most other major Jewish American organizations, denounced his ploy. If Sanders wished to highlight this ugly episode in a speech to AIPAC, it would be uncomfortable for the audience. If he wanted to make the case against President Donald Trump's peace plan or defend Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, it would be tense. Instead, by boycotting the conference altogether, Sanders is lending legitimacy to a movement that seeks to make the pro-Israel lobby itself toxic within the Democratic Party.There is a double standard at work here. In 2016 Sanders said he would work to normalize U.S. relations with Iran, a regime that sponsors terrorists who kill Jews and Americans. In January, Sanders and Elizabeth Warren hosted a conference call with the National Iranian American Council, a group that supports the U.S.-Iran relationship in the same way AIPAC advocates for the U.S.-Israel relationship.Then there is the Sanders campaign's embrace of surrogates who support the movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israel itself, something Sanders has said he opposes. The most prominent is Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American activist who in December said Israel is built on the idea of Jewish supremacy. (Unsurprisingly, she applauded his decision to skip AIPAC.) Another Sanders surrogate is Representative Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat who attacked her fellow Democrats last year, saying she "should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support for a foreign country," meaning Israel. The list goes on. The Sanders campaign is a magnet for Americans who are hostile to both the Jewish state and those who support it.All of this puts AIPAC, and the American Jewish community, in a bind. There is no doubt that it's better for Israel if both major parties support the U.S.-Israel relationship. At the same time, it's dangerous to pretend one's adversaries are allies. Sanders has made it clear that he is no friend of Israel. There will be a temptation for AIPAC to gloss over this episode, especially if Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee. After all, Sanders supports a two-state solution. He lived on an Israeli Kibbutz. He has voted to sanction Iran. At a 2014 town hall, he admirably took on hecklers defending Palestinian terrorists, giving an even-handed response to a question about Israel's war with Hamas.That was six years ago. In 2020, on the verge of securing the Democratic Party's nomination, his views seem closer to the protesters in that crowd. In this sense, his decision to skip the AIPAC meeting is clarifying. It's now time to return the favor. If Sanders wishes to boycott AIPAC, its members should boycott Sanders. To contact the author of this story: Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.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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| Bernie Sanders Boycotts Pro-Israel Americans Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:14 AM PST  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- With Bernie Sanders emerging as the front-runner to win his party's nomination, pro-Israel Americans must grapple with an uncomfortable question: Does the Democratic party still support the world's only Jewish state? What raises the question is next week's annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Sanders announced this week that he would not be attending, saying on Twitter: "I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights."At Tuesday night's debate, Sanders clarified that he was speaking about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "I'm very proud of being Jewish," he said. "I actually lived in Israel for some months. But what I happen to believe is that right now, sadly, tragically, in Israel, through Bibi Netanyahu, you have a reactionary racist who is now running that country."In other words, Sanders might deign to speak at the country's largest organization devoted to the U.S.-Israel relationship — but only if it shuns the man who Israelis have elected to lead their country for the last 10 years.This is not to say that Netanyahu is beyond reproach. Last year, he cynically accepted the help of an extremist party that favors ethnic cleansing, providing political legitimacy to what used to be a third rail in Israeli politics. AIPAC, along with most other major Jewish American organizations, denounced his ploy. If Sanders wished to highlight this ugly episode in a speech to AIPAC, it would be uncomfortable for the audience. If he wanted to make the case against President Donald Trump's peace plan or defend Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, it would be tense. Instead, by boycotting the conference altogether, Sanders is lending legitimacy to a movement that seeks to make the pro-Israel lobby itself toxic within the Democratic Party.There is a double standard at work here. In 2016 Sanders said he would work to normalize U.S. relations with Iran, a regime that sponsors terrorists who kill Jews and Americans. In January, Sanders and Elizabeth Warren hosted a conference call with the National Iranian American Council, a group that supports the U.S.-Iran relationship in the same way AIPAC advocates for the U.S.-Israel relationship.Then there is the Sanders campaign's embrace of surrogates who support the movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israel itself, something Sanders has said he opposes. The most prominent is Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American activist who in December said Israel is built on the idea of Jewish supremacy. (Unsurprisingly, she applauded his decision to skip AIPAC.) Another Sanders surrogate is Representative Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat who attacked her fellow Democrats last year, saying she "should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support for a foreign country," meaning Israel. The list goes on. The Sanders campaign is a magnet for Americans who are hostile to both the Jewish state and those who support it.All of this puts AIPAC, and the American Jewish community, in a bind. There is no doubt that it's better for Israel if both major parties support the U.S.-Israel relationship. At the same time, it's dangerous to pretend one's adversaries are allies. Sanders has made it clear that he is no friend of Israel. There will be a temptation for AIPAC to gloss over this episode, especially if Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee. After all, Sanders supports a two-state solution. He lived on an Israeli Kibbutz. He has voted to sanction Iran. At a 2014 town hall, he admirably took on hecklers defending Palestinian terrorists, giving an even-handed response to a question about Israel's war with Hamas.That was six years ago. In 2020, on the verge of securing the Democratic Party's nomination, his views seem closer to the protesters in that crowd. In this sense, his decision to skip the AIPAC meeting is clarifying. It's now time to return the favor. If Sanders wishes to boycott AIPAC, its members should boycott Sanders. To contact the author of this story: Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.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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| AccuWeather's 2020 Asia spring forecast Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:06 AM PST  It's here. AccuWeather's annual spring forecast for Asia is out -- and meteorologists are expecting a warmer-than-average season for much of the continent in 2020.While a large swath is set for ample rain this season, other locations will face building drought.Additionally, coastal areas will be at risk for a few tropical cyclones. Meanwhile, a couple of early-season cold outbreaks are forecast from eastern Siberia into northeastern Mongolia and the northern Heilongjiang province of China, but even these areas will finish the three-month period from March through May with near- to above-average temperatures.Only in the area from northern Pakistan to northern India and the Tibetan region of China will temperatures be likely to be near normal for the spring.A frequent storm track across the Middle East will carry clouds and precipitation through these areas during the first half of the spring."The pattern would slow the seasonal heating of the Indian subcontinent, similar to last spring," AccuWeather Lead International Meteorologist Jason Nicholls said.Increased soil moisture from the storms should mitigate the heat over northern India, including in New Delhi."It would still get hot in these areas as it typically does, but the warmup should be lower than average with bouts of extreme heat likely to be more infrequent than usual," Nicholls stated.Central and southern India are predicted to warm up much faster than average this spring. Heat waves will be more frequent across these areas due to limited soil moisture to begin with. An Indian woman walks carrying a child covered with scarf to shield themselves from sun on a hot summer day in Jammu, India, Monday, June 3, 2019. Many parts of India experienced heat wave conditions with temperature hovering above 45 degree Celsius (113 F). (AP Photo/Channi Anand) There is a chance that pre-monsoon rains develop in southern India and Sri Lanka late in the spring. If this materializes, the heat will be limited."There is even the chance the southwest monsoon can reach Kerala toward the end of May, which would be sooner than in 2019," Nicholls said.Drought conditions, which developed during autumn, are forecast to ease over Indonesia and Malaysia."The combination of warmer waters over the western tropical Pacific and and the evening out of water temperatures over the Indian Ocean should allow rainfall to return to near average and may even swing above average as the spring progresses," Nicholls said.Farther northwest, drought conditions are expected to worsen over in the area from Russia's Volga Valley to much of the Ukraine.This area of Asia and Eurasia has been experiencing very warm and abnormally dry or drought conditions since the autumn with few precipitation events. People enjoy warm weather as they walk at Zaryadye Park, with the Kremlin in the background, in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Feb. 17, 2020. Russian capital's residents experienced an unusually warm winter as temperatures have averaged 8 degrees Celsius (14.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal in Moscow and 6.5 C (11.7 F) above normal in Kiev, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) "Even through a slightly wetter pattern developed from late January to the first part of February, a drier pattern is forecast to return this spring," Nicholls said. "Some rainfall may occur from late April to early May, but overall, dry conditions are likely to get worse with the potential for severe drought."As winter grains emerge from dormancy and the planting of crops follows later this spring, yields may be significantly reduced as a result of the dryness.Additionally, warm weather which occurred this winter may cause grains to emerge from dormancy a little ahead of average. Any cold shots into the spring could lead to damage."Fortunately, the odds of a late Arctic blast this spring look to be minimal at this time," Nicholls added.The pattern responsible for some of the dryness in southwestern Russia and the Ukraine may also supply part of the Middle East with spring rainfall.As a semi-permanent area of high pressure develops near the surface and the jet stream level of the atmosphere, this blocking pattern may force storms to barrel farther south across Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.Several rounds of rain and mountain snow can fall in these areas as a result, especially during March and April.The same pattern would tend to produce cool fronts that can bring brief opportunities for some rain as far south as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, northern Oman and part of Saudi Arabia early in the spring.There is the chance of thunderstorms to erupt on a few occasions in southwestern Saudi Arabia and Yemen later in the spring.Farther to the northeast, China's Yangtze Valley and North Plain are expected to have adequate rainfall."Growing conditions should be good as winter grains and rapeseed emerge from dormancy and the spring planting begins for summer crops in the Yangtze Valley," Nicholls said. "Favorable growing conditions are also in store for northeastern China and much of the Korean Peninsula this spring."While Japan can start the spring on a wet note, there is a chance for dryness to evolve in South Korea, Taiwan and southern Japan during May. These areas will be influenced by an area of high pressure at most levels of the atmosphere that is forecast to settle over the western part of the Pacific Ocean.A sluggish start to the east Asia monsoon is forecast, threatening building drought in some regions."Because of the slow start to the monsoon, dryness may evolve into drought in some cases over Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand," Nicholls said. In this Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2019, photo, sightseers play on a sandbar in the Mekong River in Nakhon Phanom province, northeastern Thailand. Experts say the water levels have also become unusually low, exposing sandbanks in the middle of the river. (AP Photo/Chessadaporn Buasai) Dozens of hydroelectric dams along the Mekong River in southeastern Asia and the lack of rain already have the life-giving waterway at very low levels, the Asia Times reports.AccuWeather's early outlook on the 2020 western Pacific typhoon seasonAnother cause of dryness in southeastern Asia is likely to be related to a slow start to the western Pacific typhoon season."While limited tropical activity would lower the number of tropical threats for the Philippines, it would translate to lower rainfall and raise the potential for drought to develop on the islands," Nicholls said. Water temperatures over the Indian Ocean play a huge role in the western Pacific typhoon season, and last year, meteorologists say this was a significant factor.Chilly water over the eastern part of the Indian Ocean resulted in a more rounded shape of high pressure than expected over the western part of the Pacific Ocean last year. Tropical systems, such as typhoons, tend to travel around the edge of high pressure areas, rather than travel straight through them."In 2019, very chilly waters on the eastern part of the Indian Ocean overrode some of the routine parameters that we look at to make a call on the upcoming season," AccuWeather Tropical Weather Expert Dan Kottlowski said.Rather than a large number of typhoons slamming into the Asia mainland, like with a flattened oval-shaped high pressure area, there were more storms that took a curved path toward Japan."Water temperature anomalies over the Indian Ocean were in record-high territory during 2019," AccuWeather International Meteorologist Tyler Roys said.The water temperature anomaly has gone away over the Indian Ocean and is now close to average."So for 2020, we expect the high pressure area over the western Pacific, winds high in the atmosphere, wind shear and water temperatures in the western Pacific and the status of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) to be the main engines for the outcome and nature of the typhoon season," Kottlowski said.The western Pacific typhoon season starts at a slow pace, but this year may be even slower than average with perhaps no organized systems at all through May or June."We are basing our forecast on neutral ENSO conditions, above-average water temperatures in the western part of the Pacific, average wind shear, west to east winds aloft and a fairly round area of high pressure over the western Pacific," Kottlowski said.AccuWeather is predicting a near- to slightly-above-average number of tropical storms (29), a near-average number of typhoons (17) and a slightly below-average number of super typhoons (five). The average number of tropical storms is 26, whereas there are typically 17 typhoons and six super typhoons."We expect more impacts on the Philippines, compared to last year, once the season gets going during the summer and continues into the autumn," Kottlowski said. "We believe more typhoons are likely to take a curved path, rather than push toward the Asia mainland like in 2019."This would mean multiple impacts on Taiwan and Japan, but there could still be a few storms that reach the East Asia mainland."We always like to remind people that even though early projections may not indicate that a great number of typhoons can hit an area, one powerful storm alone can define a season and cause significant loss of life and devastation," Kottlowski cautioned. Surging waves hit against the breakwater and a lighthouse as Typhoon Hagibis approached the port town of Kiho, Mie prefecture, central Japan Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019. Hagibis, a super typhoon, went on to be the costliest typhoon in recorded history with damage topping $15 billion in U.S. dollars. At least 98 people lost their lives as a result of the storm. Winds peaked at 160 mph (260 km/h). (AP Photo/Toru Hanai) AccuWeather's early-season Indian Ocean tropical cyclone outlook for 2020As is often the case for the weather in India and the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, early-season tropical activity over the northern Indian Ocean will be a wildcard."This spring, especially during April and May, conditions look to be conducive for a bit more pre-monsoonal tropical activity over the northern Indian Ocean than the two named cyclones from 2019," Nicholls said.AccuWeather is projecting two to three named cyclones in the northern Indian Ocean with the potential for several low pressure areas to evolve into deep depressions."Forecast steering winds mean that southeastern India, Sri Lanka and the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula into Somalia may be targets for impacts somewhat similar to last year," Nicholls said.Steering winds are expected to result in more west- or northwest-tracking systems.In 2019, Very Severe Cyclonic Storm Hikaa traveled westward into Oman during September, while Super Cyclonic Storm Kyarr spun toward the west in late October and weakened just off the coast of Somalia on Nov. 1.There were 12 depressions, of which, 11 were deep depressions, eight cyclonic storms and one super cyclonic storm in 2019. It was the second-costliest North Indian Ocean cyclone year on record with at least $11 billion in U.S. dollars in damage and more than 170 fatalities.
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| Court sides with Trump in 'sanctuary cities' grant fight Posted: 26 Feb 2020 07:59 AM PST  The Trump administration can withhold millions of dollars in law enforcement grants to force states to cooperate with U.S. immigration enforcement, a federal appeals court in New York ruled Wednesday in a decision that conflicted with three other federal appeals courts. The ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan overturned a lower court's decision ordering the administration to release funding to New York City and seven states — New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington, Massachusetts, Virginia and Rhode Island.
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| EU Says U.K. Needs Green Ground Rules Ahead of Climate Summit Posted: 26 Feb 2020 07:58 AM PST |
| Coronavirus sparks U.S. travel warnings on Iran, Italy and Mongolia Posted: 26 Feb 2020 07:41 AM PST |
| Iran open to 'any initiative' after talks to save nuclear deal Posted: 26 Feb 2020 07:37 AM PST  Iran said on Wednesday it was open "to any initiative" as Western powers stepped up efforts to save a 2015 deal to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions -- on life support since a 2018 decision by the US to withdraw its backing and reimpose sanctions. After talks with the remaining parties to the deal in Vienna, Iranian negotiator Abbas Araghchi said he was "fully prepared" to reverse measures that apparently violated Tehran's commitments -- but only if the other side reciprocated. Britain, France and Germany launched the deal's formal dispute process in January after Iran said it would no longer observe limits on the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium -- one of the deal's key stipulations.
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| World powers: 'serious concerns' about Iran's atom program Posted: 26 Feb 2020 07:28 AM PST  The world powers that remain party to the nuclear deal with Iran expressed "serious concerns" Wednesday about Tehran's violations of the pact, while acknowledging that time was running out to find a way to salvage it. Wang Qun, Chinese ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna, told reporters after talks in Vienna between the parties to the deal, including Iran, that they are "racing against time to work out a specific solution so as to safeguard" the landmark 2015 agreement. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the deal is known, promises Iran economic incentives in return for curbs on its nuclear program, with the goal of preventing Iran from developing a bomb — something the country's leaders insist they do not want to do.
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| Everything You Should Know About Amy Klobuchar’s Boyfriend Loophole Bill Posted: 26 Feb 2020 07:18 AM PST  All eyes were on seven Democratic candidates as they continued to fight it out for the party nomination in the South Carolina debate on Tuesday. Tensions are running high as presidential hopefuls pull out receipts on their fellow candidates' voting history, policy support, and relevant experience. Even as they agree that one of the next steps in ending gun violence is to close the "boyfriend loophole," former vice president Joe Biden and Sen. Amy Klobuchar duked it out over the bill that both candidates claimed they penned.About half an hour into the debate, moderator Gayle King opened up the floor to Biden to discuss his plans to combat gun violence in the United States. Biden spoke about his history with taking on the National Rifle Association before Klobuchar explained why she would be the most qualified candidate to promote lasting change in this arena. "The way we do it is having someone leading the ticket from a part of the country that we actually need the votes," said the Minnesota senator. "So I have long supported the assault weapon band. I am the author of the bill to close the boyfriend loophole that says that domestic abusers can't go out and get an AK-47." Biden then interjected claiming that he actually wrote "the bill" when he got the Violence Against Women Act renewed last year — a feat that is related to the boyfriend loophole, but doesn't quite tackle the same specificities. The act, which was first sponsored by Biden in 1993 and passed the following year, is credited as playing a significant role in the 64% decrease in intimate partner violence in the more than 25 years since. Biden has described it as the legislation he is the proudest of his career in the senate.While the candidates argued over credits, many wondered the same thing: what exactly is the boyfriend loophole? In 2017, Klobuchar helped introduce legislation to close a legal workaround known as the boyfriend loophole, which literally allowed abusive partners to continue buying firearms. Under current federal law, people who have been convicted of domestic abuse are prevented from buying a gun if they have been married to, lived with, or had a child with the victim; however, this does not stop a boyfriend or stalker from purchasing a firearm. Some states have closed the loop on a local level, but Klobuchar's legislation would see it closed at a sweeping federal level. A United Nations study conducted in 2017 on gender-related killing of women and girls showed that over 50% of women murdered were killed by an intimate partner and that 82% of all homicide victims targeted by an intimate partner are women. Guns were the weapon of choice in over half of all recorded female homicides. Given these statistics and the overwhelming cultural push for addressing gun violence and violence against women, closing the boyfriend loophole is an issue 2020 presidential hopefuls are honing in on with actionable solutions that can be implemented.Related Content:Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?Stop Talking About Amy Klobuchar's Debate EyebrowsKlobuchar & Buttigieg's Most Intense BattlesAmy Klobuchar & Elizabeth Warren's Solidarity
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| Parties to Iran nuclear deal meet but make little progress on saving it Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:56 AM PST |
| How deadly is new coronavirus? It's still too early to tell Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:53 AM PST  Scientists can't tell yet how deadly the new virus that's spreading around the globe really is — and deepening the mystery, the fatality rate differs even within China. As infections of the virus that causes COVID-19 surge in other countries, even a low fatality rate can add up to lots of victims, and understanding why one place fares better than another becomes critical to unravel. "You could have bad outcomes with this initially until you really get the hang of how to manage" it, Dr. Bruce Aylward, the World Health Organization envoy who led a team of scientists just back from China, warned Tuesday.
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| Brazil confirms first coronavirus case in Latin America Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:46 AM PST  Brazil's government confirmed on Wednesday that a 61-year-old Brazilian man who traveled to Italy this month has Latin America's first confirmed case of the new coronavirus spreading worldwide. "We will now see how this virus behaves in a tropical country in the middle of summer, how its behavior pattern will be," Brazil's Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said in a press conference. The Brazilian man spent two weeks in northern Italy's Lombardy region on a work trip, where he contracted the contagious virus, the Health Ministry said.
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| Coronavirus Panic Causes More Woes for Iran’s Currency: Chart Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:34 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- The spread of the coronavirus to Iran, which has more confirmed cases than anywhere in the Middle East, is causing panic in the Islamic Republic and the rial to tumble. The currency has weakened about 10% on the black market since the nation announced its first case on Feb. 19, according to bonbast.com, a local website. That's extended its drop since a bout of anti-government protests in November to almost 30%.To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Wallace in Dubai at pwallace25@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Nicholson at anicholson6@bloomberg.net, Paul WallaceFor 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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| Biden nabs Clyburn endorsement before South Carolina primary Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:31 AM PST  U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking black member of Congress and the kingmaker of South Carolina's Democratic political orbit, on Wednesday endorsed Joe Biden's presidential campaign. The backing could provide a much-needed boost for the former vice president heading into South Carolina's primary. "I can think of no one better suited, better prepared, I can think of no one with the integrity, no one more committed to the fundamental principles that make this country what it is than my good friend," said Clyburn, appearing with Biden at an event in North Charleston.
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| Shifting demographics drive GOP nosedive on US West Coast Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:20 AM PST  In the early 1990s, the population of Bend was around 25,000 and leaned Republican. The transformation shows how demographic shifts and the GOP's tack further to the right are helping push the party into a nosedive along the West Coast. The last Republican presidential candidate that California went for was George H.W. Bush.
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| A guerrilla-to-entrepreneur plan in Colombia leaves some new businesswomen isolated and at risk Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:02 AM PST  Women made up nearly a quarter of the 13,000 guerrilla fighters disarmed by Colombia's 2016 peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Though implementation has been halting, the landmark peace deal officially ended Colombia's 52-year armed conflict with this Marxist rebel group. But even before the peace deal more than 19,000 fighters – including thousands of women – had abandoned different Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary groups, voluntarily or after being captured by the army. In exchange for disarming, Colombia offered this first group of ex-combatants training in accounting, stock management, market analysis, development of business plans and US$2,300 – roughly eight months of minimum wage earnings – to start a small business. With the government's assistance, thousands of former female insurgents have started small home businesses, tailoring clothing, making handicrafts or selling food. Now, the government is expanding its entrepreneurship program to cover all 2,990 female FARC fighters disbanded under the 2016 peace deal. So I wanted to check in on past beneficiaries to see how they were faring. For seven months in 2018 and 2019, as part of my dissertation research on Colombia, I conducted in-depth interviews with 12 retired female guerrilla fighters to document their transition back into civilian life.They're not doing so well. Transforming identitiesIn Colombia, as in other conflict zones, rejoining society after war is generally more challenging for women. Whether they served as soldiers, cooks, spies or sexual partners to male fighters, women militants are frequently seen as abnormal, or unfeminine. Fighting violates traditional expectation of women as the peaceful and nurturing gender. In Colombia, many of the women I interviewed said they were shunned when they returned to civilian life. "Even my family thought the worst of me – that I had become bloodthirsty or bad," said a 33-year-old woman who was forced by her father to join the FARC when she was 17.Other women reported feeling similar social exclusion. The perception of stigma prevented them from fully engaging with their local communities. All hid their pasts. Some avoided interacting with neighbors, afraid they would discover their secret.This is the opposite of the government's intention with the small business program, which aims to promote social interactions. Funded by the Colombian government, USAID and the United Nations and designed following U.N. guidelines, entrepreneurship is supposed to help former insurgents gain community acceptance, take control over their circumstances, rejoin the labor market and reduce poverty.Promoting entrepreneurship is a popular development strategy for women, not just in conflict zones but also in poor countries with entrenched gender inequality. Since 2001 the World Bank has launched micro-lending and small grant programs in South Sudan, Liberia, Afghanistan, Haiti and Kosovo, among others. However, their effectiveness is unproven, and some studies find entrepreneurship does not meaningfully improve women's lives.Running a home business seemed to isolate the former insurgents in my study. More than half told me they were unable to form the kind of social support system that research shows is necessary for reintegration."I don't like to go anywhere, I don't like to visit anyone," a 31-year-old woman told me. She was particularly worried that if neighbors learned about her history as an rebel fighter, they would tell the gang members who control her neighborhood, endangering her life.This social isolation effectively trapped some women in violent relationships. One felt that working from home kept her from meeting new people who might have become a protective network. "He punched me. I still have the bruise," she said. I could see the mark on her cheek. The attack was recent. The woman told me she hadn't left the house in 15 days. Constraints to social inclusionSucceeding in business is difficult for anyone, in any country, under any circumstance. Research shows the chances for success are even lower for poor female entrepreneurs.My interviews in Colombia suggest that the Colombian government's reliance on entrepreneurship may make female ex-insurgents financial situation even more precarious than it would otherwise be because they lack the safety net of formal employment. "I was not used to having a business, so I gave credit to many people," said one ex-combatant whose government seed-funded grocery store in Medellin, Colombia went broke.When former insurgents who receive government benefits fail, they do not get another loan. They must find a job on their own.Another problem I identified with Colombia's governmental entrepreneurship program was that it restricts grant recipients to low-skill jobs that may not align with an individual's experience, skills and interests."My dream was to study dentistry, but I did not have a high school diploma," a woman who was a dentist in the FARC told me. "I had to do tailoring." Sewing and selling underwear and jackets helped the former fighter support herself and her son through a divorce. But the work was not meaningful to her, and it did not further her long-term educational and career goals.Running a small business at home also reinforced unequal distribution of family responsibilities for many of the women I interviewed. Because they were in the house, they were expected to do all domestic chores and childcare – all while cooking, sewing or selling food. Gender troublesThe former guerrilla fighters I interviewed are years into the reintegration process. Their struggles signal great challenges ahead for Colombia as it returns thousands of FARC women back to civilian life by 2023, the timeline for completing the reintegration process.In some ways, however, Colombia is actually ahead of the game. Gender-specific policies are in short supply in war zones globally."Peace agreements are still adopted without provisions considering the needs and priorities of women and girls," said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in October 2019. He said a "pitifully small" amount of aid to fragile and post-conflict nations – just 0.2% – goes to "women's organizations."Colombia's accord tried to do better. At the FARC's insistence, women were on the negotiating team. The accord specifically commits the state to promoting equal rights for women and men. But my research suggests that making peace work for female insurgents will take more than a well crafted accord.Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski, a professor of international and multicultural education at Florida State University, contributed research to this article.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Violence climbs in Colombia as president chips away at landmark peace deal with FARC guerrillas * How women wage war – a short history of IS brides, Nazi guards and FARC insurgentsMaria Paulina Arango receives funding from the United States Institute of Peace.
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| Nuclear war could be devastating for the US, even if no one shoots back Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:01 AM PST  The White House's 2021 budget calls for US$28.9 billion for the Pentagon for nuclear weapons and a 20% increase to $19.8 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration. Yet the U.S. already has over 3,000 nuclear weapons. And my research shows that the U.S. could only safely use a fraction of them without killing Americans with an unintended adverse series of cascading environmental effects.My models and those of others show that soot from the burning of cities following numerous nuclear blasts would cause a significant drop in global temperature, blocking the sunlight from reaching the Earth's surface. This would cause a drop in precipitation, increased ultraviolet radiation resulting from a badly damaged atmosphere, and a breakdown in supply chains and food production.The study my colleague, David Denkenberger, and I did shows how damaging a nuclear attack using several nuclear weapons would be for the aggressor nation. Nuclear winter versus nuclear autumnYou have probably heard of "nuclear winter." That's when multiple nuclear weapon strikes cause cities to burn, putting massive amounts of smoke into the upper atmosphere and blocking sunlight for years. The resultant agricultural loss would cause massive global starvation. The science behind nuclear winter influenced Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. president Ronald Reagan to end the Cold War and begin nuclear disarmament. The agricultural loss from the less-known "nuclear autumn" – meaning a smaller amount of smoke – would range from a 10% to 20% drop in global agriculture. That's enough to cause widespread food shortages, still causing many millions of people to starve. Every nation willing to use its nuclear weaponry must determine whether it has the ability to survive the problems of its own making. Nations with nuclear weapons all ascribe to the concept of nuclear deterrence – the idea that more nuclear firepower is intimidating and makes other countries think twice before picking a fight. My colleague and I wanted to know: How many nuclear weapons could a country use against an enemy without causing a nuclear autumn and killing their own people? Simulating nuclear warFirst, we determined how many nuclear weapons would be enough to provide substantial deterrence for a "worst case" enemy – the most populous target nation. We looked at the threat posed by a number of different countries, from those with around 100 weapons, like India or Pakistan, to Russia, which has about 7,000. We estimated that, if 100 nuclear weapons hit China's most populous cities, initial blasts would kill more than 30 million people. This would kill a higher fraction of the population than even severe pandemics, destroy China's economy and would almost certainly destabilize its political system. It would be even worse for any smaller country –- providing plenty of deterrence to prevent any other nation from attacking.Next, we looked at the impacts on the nuclear aggressor. We optimistically assumed no accidents; all nuclear weapons hitting their targets, whether that was 100, 1,000 or 7,000; and no retaliation of any kind.We built a model of the burnable material in cities: how much would burn in a nuclear attack, how much of that would turn into smoke, how much of that smoke would make it into the upper atmosphere. Then, we used the result of climate and crop simulations to predict the impact on food supply. Finally, we coupled this with food storage to predict how many people would starve.Our results showed no Americans would die in the scenario of the U.S. using 100 weapons. The U.S. is blessed with a large amount of agricultural land compared to the population, so the country is resilient to industrial loss and mild nuclear autumn if Americans cooperate and share resources.If Americans used 1,000 nuclear warheads against an enemy and no one retaliated, the U.S. would see about 140,000 Americans die, due to the burning of cities in other countries, causing environmental catastrophe at home from lower food production.If the U.S. attempts to expand our stockpile as recently proposed and then used 7,000 nuclear weapons, even if everything went perfectly our way, at minimum 5 million Americans would starve. This analysis severely underestimates the number of dead Americans, since we assume severe rationing, which is the best way to keep the most people alive when there is this level of food shortage without alternative food. Current arsenalsCompared to other nations, if the U.S. used its entire current nuclear arsenal, it is the best case for surviving nuclear autumn – losses to industry and a 10% food shortfall. Other countries are far worse off. If a country with fewer weapons, like North Korea or Israel, fired off relatively few nuclear weapons and triggered nuclear autumn and were not hit by any in return or suffer retaliation, they would be harming themselves. Our model shows that they would lose 60% and 80% of their populations, respectively. China would expect to lose 70% of its population in a nuclear autumn, even if they were the ones lobbing the missiles. Overall, we found that limiting America's arsenal to 100 nuclear weapons still provides nuclear deterrence, but avoids the worst of the probable effects of a nuclear autumn. It is clear by cutting down on nuclear weapons, the U.S. actually would save money making the safe decision.[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * The US nuclear arsenal: A quick overview * Is it time for a 21st-century version of 'The Day After'?Dr. Joshua M. Pearce has received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the Air Force Research Laboratory (ARFL) with the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) and America Makes, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). In addition, his past and present consulting work and research is funded by many non-profits and for-profit companies. He does not have any conflicts of interests with this article.
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| Airplanes spread diseases quickly – so maybe unvaccinated people shouldn't be allowed to fly Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:01 AM PST  As the coronavirus spreads, the nation's leading health official told a Senate committee on Feb. 25 that "we cannot hermetically seal off the United States to a virus." The comments from Alex Azar II, head of Health and Human Services, heightened concerns about the effects of the coronavirus in the U.S., which so far has sickened a relatively small number – 57 – of people in the U.S. And with hundreds of new cases of the coronavirus reported in South Korea, a spike of deaths in Iran, and a 10-town lockdown in Italy, the rapidly spreading COVID-19 may be on the verge of becoming a pandemic. The World Health Organization now says the disease has "pandemic potential." This is only the latest outbreak to show how quickly pathogens can spread in a changing world. The worldwide response is a testament to the immediate need for intervention and containment: flights canceled, cruise ships quarantined, travel banned, and a rigorous monitoring of the Chinese response.What is now beyond dispute is that airplanes are giving the virus a big boost. As legal and public health scholars, we study how airline travel contributes to the spread of infectious agents, and how potential vaccines could limit it. The global impact of flightsThe 2002 SARS epidemic cost airlines an estimated US$7 billion. After factoring in suspended flights, the impingement on trade, and the transport of Chinese-made medical supplies, the cost of COVID-19 will likely be much larger.This is nothing new. Air travel is a way to spread many virulent infectious diseases, including diphtheria, hepatitis A, influenza A and B, measles, mumps, meningococcus, rubella, tuberculosis, norovirus – the list goes on. In the U.S., airlines move more than two-and-a-half million people per day, squeezing them into long metal cylinders where all share the same air, the same restrooms, and take meals shoulder-to-shoulder for hours and hours.Measles outbreaks have begun at airports. One plane carrying a single symptomatic SARS patient saw the disease develop in at least 16 others. Transmission of seasonal influenza during flights is well documented; after 9-11, when U.S. airline travel stopped abruptly, the pattern of mortality associated with it or pneumonia dramatically shifted. Consistently, the research finds the single most significant predictor of influenza spread is domestic airline volume.There is no doubt that close contact, especially when prolonged, spreads contagion. This is true for respiratory droplets, direct skin contact, and sometimes, fecal or oral spread. Making matters much worse: Airlines, taking people from place to place, turn what might otherwise be local outbreaks into worldwide crises. It's hard to conceive a more efficient way to spread infectious disease. What are potential solutions?The CDC maintains a "do-not-board" list prohibiting people with a communicable disease from flying. Yet these policies only work for patients already diagnosed, or with overt symptoms, and viral disease transmission typically begins days, even weeks, before symptoms appear. For example, the incubation period for COVID-19 is believed to be between two days and two weeks; for many people, fever is the first and only sign of infection. In these situations, our current policies don't work. One suggestion: Airlines could require vaccination for passengers, or at least make them show a medical exemption as to why they cannot be vaccinated. Perhaps now is the time to consider this. Right now, scientists are urgently working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. If they succeed, a vaccine dissemination strategy will be needed immediately. Also, just this month, the FDA approved a new vaccine for pandemic influenza (H5N1). As for the seasonal flu vaccines, they are already here. All this provides an excellent test bed for finding a way to vaccinate the broad population during a pandemic. Vaccines could be available at airports (as some are now doing for existing vaccines). But we believe a longer-term term goal is to create a database to identify who has been vaccinated, for future seasonal flu episodes and epidemics. This supports the public health approach to deal with future pandemics, when new vaccines are quickly developed. Legal and ethical considerationsClear legal authority exists to link a vaccination mandate to air travel. After 9-11, the courts emphasized that airlines are duty-bound to protect their passengers and those on the ground from risks. The CDC or Surgeon General could exercise authority to "make and enforce such regulations … to prevent the spread of communicable diseases." Under the U.S. Constitution, the federal government indisputably has the power to act when regulating "channels of interstate commerce." That includes the airlines.What about the rights of individuals who refuse to vaccinate? Courts have long upheld vaccination mandates for schools, where close and prolonged contact is inevitable. Even though there is a "right to travel," and there are laws protecting religious practices from government encroachment, our courts have explicitly declared vaccination is a government interest; they've upheld vaccine mandates for more than a century.These basic legal principles, along with the facts, suggest that airlines and airports are key to stopping the spread of disease. Public health interventions should obviously focus on them. After all, it's where the impact is likely to be greatest. [Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today's news, every day.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * What scientists are doing to develop a vaccine for the new coronavirus * The hunt for a coronavirus cure is showing how science can change for the betterThe authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| Trump urges calm even as US reports worrisome new virus case Posted: 26 Feb 2020 05:36 AM PST  President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that a widespread U.S. outbreak of the new respiratory virus sweeping the globe isn't inevitable even as top health authorities at his side warned Americans that more infections are coming. Trump sought to minimize fears as he insisted the U.S. is "very, very ready" for whatever the COVID-19 outbreak brings. Under fire about the government's response, he put Vice President Mike Pence in charge of coordinating the efforts.
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| Italy seeks to calm fears in Europe as cases, deaths rise Posted: 26 Feb 2020 04:41 AM PST  Italy sought to rally international support for its virus containment efforts Wednesday even as its caseload reached 447, people linked to Italy fell ill across Europe and as far away as Brazil, and the U.N.'s health agency urged a scaled-up response. Italy has been struggling to contain the rapidly spreading outbreak that made it the country with more coronavirus cases outside Asia than anywhere else. Twelve people infected with the virus have died in Italy since Friday, all of them elderly, having other health conditions or both, civil protection chief Angelo Borelli said.
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| Iranian rial plunges as coronavirus threatens export lifeline Posted: 26 Feb 2020 04:40 AM PST  Iran's rial hit a one-year low against the dollar on Wednesday as a sharp rise in coronavirus cases forced the closure of most of its borders, threatening the non-oil exports that are its main economic lifeline. Iran's coronavirus death toll rose to 19, the highest outside China, pushing several countries to suspend flights and most of its neighbours to close their borders. Mounting U.S. sanctions pressure has already shackled Iran's oil industry and slashed its crude exports.
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