| Senators blast Trump administration for coronavirus response Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:15 PM PST  Top officials in the Trump administration struggled on Tuesday morning to justify their response to the growing threat of the coronavirus, which has sickened at least 80,423 people around the world and killed at least 2,712.
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| A Florida woman is being accused of zipping her boyfriend into a suitcase and leaving him to die Posted: 26 Feb 2020 09:21 AM PST  Sarah Boone, 42, claimed it was just an accident. But police saw troubling videos of her taunting him as he struggled to get out of the luggage.
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| Louisiana governor: Judge should resign after racial slurs Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:38 AM PST |
| Supreme Court rules Mexican parents can't sue Border Patrol agent who killed their son Posted: 25 Feb 2020 09:05 AM PST  The ruling was a defeat for the parents of Sergio Hernandez Guereca, who was on the Mexico side when he was shot in 2010 by a Border Patrol agent who fired from the U.S. side.
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| Who won the Democratic debate? Our panelists' verdict Posted: 25 Feb 2020 09:52 PM PST  The South Carolina debate was the final one before Super Tuesday. So who emerged as the victor? 'Warren dominated the mic and Sanders held his ground'Oh yeah, man. Let's get into it. Let's dive into the issues that other debate moderators have not yet dared to approach so far. Let's ask questions such as: "Would you, as president, support a ban on trans fats and large sodas?"Did everyone else get this push notification from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warning that there was going to be a "disruption to everyday life" with the looming coronavirus pandemic? I don't know if that was just Russia meddling in the election or whatever, but I am wondering why it took 90 minutes for the moderators to bring the virus up, and why their question was framed around whether the United States should completely freak out and shut down all the borders. Not, should we do something about the fact that the uninsured will often avoid doctors when they are ill because they are afraid of unpredictable medical bills, or how our rural hospitals are shutting down, or how we have sanctions on medical supplies against Iran, where a coronavirus outbreak is worsening. Look, I know Mercury is retrograde, but there is absolutely no excuse for this shameful performance.As for the candidates, for someone who doesn't support the use of filibuster, Elizabeth Warren sure did dominate the microphone on Tuesday night. Pete Buttigieg tried to make everything about him by talking over everyone, Michael Bloomberg was absolutely adorable trying to explain the history of hostilities in the Middle East, and Tom Steyer somehow felt emboldened to talk about economic justice despite building part of his wealth on private prisons and mines. Amy Klobuchar was also there.The mood was chaotic, the audience paid a lot of money to behave like they were attending a Jerry Springer show, most of the candidates' hair was weirdly terrible, and the only person to hold their ground was Bernie Sanders. He stayed on message, he refused to take easy bait, and he didn't do what I would have done, which is when asked about his "controversial" remarks about thinking it was good that Cuba taught people how to read he did not yell "would all of you people grow up" and storm off the stage. This is the last time we'll see probably about half of these candidates, after Super Tuesday annihilates their campaigns. Too bad. Sure gonna miss Pete and Amy fighting over who is the most midwestern candidate. * Jessa Crispin is the host of the Public Intellectual podcast. She is a Guardian US columnist 'Donald Trump was the winner yet again'On Tuesday night, the Democrats held a prime-time steel cage match. Seven presidential aspirants repeatedly traded verbal blows. After two-plus hours, Donald Trump emerged victorious – and he wasn't even in the ring.Even worse, many of the combatants appeared removed from reality. Coronavirus, a reeling stock market, and low unemployment now shape our landscape. Yet the potential pandemic drew no mention until Michael Bloomberg, New York City's former mayor, raised the threat the virus poses.Medicare-for-All continued to receive outsized attention despite the fact that most Americans take a dim view of government being the be-all and end-all of individual healthcare. By the numbers, US adults reject socialism by better than two-to-one. Jeremy Corbyn's fate is a cautionary tale.As the 2018 midterms remind us, control of the US House of Representatives and US Senate hinges on wooing and winning persuadable voters. Yet, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren posture as if they can impose their will upon a blank slate.As for the rest of the field, Pete Buttigieg delivered a crisp performance. Meanwhile, Joe Biden looked and sounded engaged. His sense of humor may yet get him to the finish line first in South Carolina's upcoming Saturday primary. * Lloyd Green was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush's 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 'The well-heeled audience booed Sanders and Warren and loved Bloomberg'Judging purely by the reaction of the crowd watching the Democratic primary debate live in South Carolina, you would think Bloomberg had a magnificent comeback – almost as if he had miraculously developed a personality that Americans could connect with.Elizabeth Warren quickly found herself on the receiving end of an angry crowd as she excoriated Bloomberg for his and his company's past that is littered with sexual harassment accusations. It's extraordinary that Warren's attempt to champion the women who have been silenced by his non-disclosure agreements was met with furious booing.Bernie Sanders found himself on the receiving end of raucous booing, too, when he challenged Mayor Bloomberg throughout the night, including when he was criticizing Bloomberg's relationship with China.It didn't take long before rumors about Bloomberg purchasing the audience started spreading around. So much so that one of Bloomberg's top staffers had to inform Josh Lederman of NBC news that the Bloomberg campaign "did not pay people to attend the debate and cheer for Bloomberg".Perhaps not. Still, a few Google searches later we quickly discovered that the price of tickets to the South Carolina debate ranged between $1,750 and $3,200. And while this does not mean these individuals were paid by Bloomberg to cheer for him, it does mean that the audience members were most likely in a financial position to oppose candidates like Warren and Sanders, who would likely raise their taxes.So it may be the case that Bloomberg had no need to purchase support in the South Carolina debate when the system established by the Democratic party created the conditions under which only the wealthiest people in South Carolina could attend and, subsequently, cheer on the oligarch who would ensure their taxes would not go up. * Benjamin Dixon is the host of the Benjamin Dixon Show 'Attempts to woo black voters sounded like virtue signalling'It's hard to identify anything but losers of this debate. As expected, Bernie Sanders – who has won the popular vote in each of the primaries and caucuses thus far – was attacked at the onset with red scare-level fear mongering about basic social policies from both the moderators and most of the candidates.Virtually all the other candidates, except perhaps Elizabeth Warren, who exuded an air of calm, acted as if their chances would be blasted into oblivion unless they threw the kitchen sink at every answer.Ahead of the first primary that tests the candidates' appeal to a significant black electorate in South Carolina, this came across as virtue signaling instead of meaningful engagement with the issues at hand. Candidates used Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk policy, for instance, to discuss virtually every racial inequality under the sun and plug various race-centric plans they are running on. Will black voters buy it? We'll soon find out. * Malaika Jabali is a public policy attorney, writer and activist 'Sanders won an awful debate'What a wretched debate, two hours of shouting and interrupting and pandering from which it was hard to discern much sense. All that noise worked for Bernie Sanders. He remains the frontrunner because nobody else made a point. The others had their chance to bash him as a Fidel Castro sympathizer, but didn't manage to pull it off.None took him down over healthcare, since it appears to be the issue that has driven him to the front. Elizabeth Warren would have ground Michael Bloomberg into dust over sexism (and failure to release his tax returns) if the moderators had allowed her. But the moderators had no control over candidates desperate to make a mark just before South Carolina and Super Tuesday. So none of them really made a mark.Biden did himself no harm but did not deliver the sort of performance that could propel him into Super Tuesday and stunt Sanders's rise. Bloomberg looked bad enough that it should give African Americans serious doubts about whether to abandon Biden for him. Sanders won by not making any big mistakes and by offering a reasonable defense of his comments about Latin America, and Biden held his own on friendly ground in South Carolina. * Art Cullen is editor of The Storm Lake Times in northwest Iowa, where he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. He is a Guardian US columnist and author of the book Storm Lake: Change, Resilience, and Hope in America's Heartland, just out in paperback
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| Iran to Sentence Citizens Who “Spreads Rumors” about Coronavirus to Flogging, Three Years in Prison Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:37 PM PST  An Iranian parliament spokesman on Wednesday announced that anyone found to be "spreading rumors" about the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak will be sentenced to one-to-three years in prison and flogging, Iran state news agency IRNA reported."Spreading fake news over coronavirus outbreak will people panic. It also will pave the ground for the country's shutdown," said Hassan Norouzi, spokesman for the parliament's legal and judicial committee, in comments translated by the Tehran Times.Norouzi said the prison sentence and flogging is based on "on the Islamic penal code," and 24 people have been arrested already on suspicion of "spreading rumors" about the illness.Iran has reported 139 cases of coronavirus infections throughout the country, with an epicenter in the city of Qom, a destination for Shi'ite Muslim religious pilgrims. Nineteen Iranians have died from the illness so far, and the country has the highest number of cases in the Middle East. While officials have recommended that citizens not visit Qom, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced on Wednesday that the government does not plan to quarantine entire cities, only infected individuals."Coronavirus must not be turned into a weapon for our enemies to halt work and production in our country," Rouhani said.On Tuesday Iranian deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi announced that he had contracted coronavirus. In a video taken at his home, Harirchi attempted to reassure viewers, saying "I will certainly defeat corona."Harirchi was filmed a day earlier on state television to announce that the country's outbreak was under control, visibly sweating and wiping his face with a handkerchief.
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| Boom: The Army Just Invented a Newer, Deadlier Artillery Round Posted: 25 Feb 2020 08:50 AM PST  That's going to ruin somebody's day.
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| Israel is the first country to warn its citizens not to travel abroad over coronavirus fears Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:24 PM PST  Israel on Wednesday became the first country to officially warn its citizens to avoid any international travel amid fears over the coronavirus outbreak.Several airlines have canceled flights to China, where the respiratory virus originated, and governments have issued warnings about travel to certain countries, but no country has actively urged their citizens avoid traveling abroad at large until now. "If you don't genuinely have to fly — don't do so," Israel's health ministry said in a statement.Although the majority of cases remain in China, the virus has spread to several other countries. In response to criticism that the country was stoking panic and could cause both economic and diplomatic damage, the health ministry said they'd rather deal with the inconveniences now than be sorry later, The Times of Israel reports.The only confirmed Israeli cases so far involve people who were on a cruise ship that was quarantined in Japan, although South Korea — which is experiencing one of the larger outbreaks beyond China — reportedly informed Israel over the weekend that a members from a group of pilgrims returned to South Korea from Israel and tested positive for the disease. Read more at The Times of Israel.More stories from theweek.com Trump puts Pence in charge of coronavirus response Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity Trump's coronavirus response is worse than incompetent
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| Sen. Elizabeth Warren says Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand regularly check in on her Posted: 25 Feb 2020 03:21 PM PST  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) says she is on good terms with some Democratic ex-presidential candidates.
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| Trump in 2014 said Obama was 'a psycho' not to immediately cancel flights into the US amid Ebola outbreak in West Africa Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:26 AM PST  As the president looks to calm the markets over his handling of the Coronavirus, his past tweets paint a different picture.
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| Facial-Recognition Company That Works With Law Enforcement Says Entire Client List Was Stolen Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:55 AM PST  A facial-recognition company that contracts with powerful law-enforcement agencies just reported that an intruder stole its entire client list, according to a notification the company sent to its customers. In the notification, which The Daily Beast reviewed, the startup Clearview AI disclosed to its customers that an intruder "gained unauthorized access" to its list of customers, to the number of user accounts those customers had set up, and to the number of searches its customers have conducted. The notification said the company's servers were not breached and that there was "no compromise of Clearview's systems or network." The company also said it fixed the vulnerability and that the intruder did not obtain any law-enforcement agencies' search histories. Tor Ekeland, an attorney for the company, said Clearview prioritizes security."Security is Clearview's top priority," he said in a statement provided to The Daily Beast. "Unfortunately, data breaches are part of life in the 21st century. Our servers were never accessed. We patched the flaw, and continue to work to strengthen our security."The firm drew national attention when The New York Times ran a front-page story about its work with law-enforcement agencies. The Times reported that the company scraped 3 billion images from the internet, including from Facebook, YouTube, and Venmo. That process violated Facebook's terms of service, according to the paper. It also created a resource that drew the attention of hundreds of law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, according to that report. In a follow-up story, the Times reported that law-enforcement officials have used the tools to identify children who are victims of sexual abuse. One anonymous Canadian law-enforcement official told the paper that Clearview was "the biggest breakthrough in the last decade" for investigations of those crimes. Facebook Makes Facial Recognition Opt-In Instead of Automatically Scanning Users' FacesThe notification did not describe the breach as a hack. David Forscey, the managing director of the no-profit Aspen Cybersecurity Group, said the breach is concerning. "If you're a law-enforcement agency, it's a big deal, because you depend on Clearview as a service provider to have good security, and it seems like they don't," Forscey said. Facial-recognition technology—which matches photos of unidentified victims or suspects against enormous databases of photos—has long drawn intense criticism from privacy advocates. They argue it could essentially mean the end of personal privacy, especially given the proliferation of security cameras in public places. Some law-enforcement officials, meanwhile, see it as a tool with enormous potential value. 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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| Mom of missing toddler accused of filing false police report Posted: 25 Feb 2020 08:06 AM PST  The teen mother of a 15-month-old Tennessee girl who is the subject of an Amber Alert is now accused of filing a false police report. Megan Boswell, who has said the toddler's grandmother took the little girl to Mendota, Virginia, is being held at the Sullivan County jail on a false report charge, according to the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office. The 18-year-old is accused of providing detectives and and agents with a number of conflicting statements during the investigation, The Bristol Herald Courier reported Tuesday night.
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| Supreme Court tosses D.C. sniper case after change in Virginia law Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:21 PM PST  The Supreme Court heard arguments in Lee Boyd Malvo's case in October.
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| Michael Bloomberg accused of paying people to cheer for him at election debate Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:47 AM PST  Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg received loud applause and whoops at the latest TV debate with his rivals – cheers that some said were suspiciously enthusiastic given his lacklustre performance.The former New York mayor needed a strong showing at the debate to recover from his first appearance with the other candidates in Nevada, which was generally agreed to have been a disaster for his campaign.
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| Iran’s Incompetent Response to Coronavirus Threatens the Middle East and the World Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:32 PM PST  The Iranian government has covered up an outbreak of coronavirus that now threatens the Middle East and has led to border closures and hospitalizations in five countries. Over the weekend of February 21, president Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian officials downplayed the growing crises as Iran's death toll from the virus climbed. It is now apparent that the regime, which has threatened the region with ballistic missiles, drones, naval mines, and militias over the last few years, has become a health threat as well, as it incubates a potential pandemic. The coronavirus has likely traveled from China to Iran's city of Qom along the same route that pilgrims and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps uses to travel, illustrating the regime's disregard for its own citizens and neighbors.It all began with Iran's wanting to show the world it had higher turnout at recent elections. Iranian member of parliament Mahmoud Sadeghi called on officials to take the coronavirus seriously during elections, and alleged that the government was hiding the outbreak of the contagious virus last week. Instead, Iran's regime kept the extent of the spread of the virus under wraps, keeping it off the homepages of major local media. Turkish officials also warned last week that there were 750 coronavirus cases in Iran, and that it had spread from the religious city of Qom to other regions. Yet Iran's deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi downplayed fears on Monday, claiming rumors of 50 deaths were false. Now Haririchi and Sadeghi are both sick, and Iran's death toll is the second-worst for the virus, after China itself.Iran's failure to confront the health crises is not just due to the regime's authoritarianism. China has fought the virus with authoritarian quarantining of Wuhan. Instead, it is the regime's preexisting arrogance, conspiracy-minded behavior, and siege mentality that led to its discounting an emerging crisis and enabled Shi'ite pilgrims traveling to Qom from all over the world to continue praying together and traveling without checks, becoming incubators of the virus. People returning from Iran have spread the virus across the Gulf to Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. They have returned to Najaf, a holy city in Iraq, where dozens are now under observation.Iran couldn't have chosen a worse time in the Middle East to do this. Countries such as Iraq are beset by protests and uncertainty, with Iraq specifically lacking a new government and threatened by ISIS resurgence. The Gulf already has one crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar and is economically on edge due to serving as a transport hub linked to global trade amid all this. China's coronavirus has spooked markets, and Iran is adding to the disaster.The Iranian regime has mocked coronavirus as similar to the flu in recent comments. And it has weaponized the tragedy to use it against U.S. sanctions by claiming that, like the sanctions, it is overrated. Iran's government is using the Iranian people as a human shield, and their alleged lack of suffering from the virus as a propaganda tool. Yet ultimately, the virus may be more of a threat to Rouhani's government than he realizes. With officials sick, schools closed, and the military, police, and IRGC mobilized, the regime may find that propaganda won't cure this crisis. Iran's regime has survived using brutality, killing protesters last year, shooting down an airline this year, and blaming others for its problems while it seeks to attack Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. But Iran was unprepared for an epidemic, and its normal arsenal won't save it.Unfortunately for the Gulf, Iraq, and other countries, Iran's incubation is a threat to the world now. Its airlines, such as Mahan Air, have likely spread the virus to Lebanon and brought it from China. Mahan Air and other Iranian IRGC-linked firms have transported arms and operatives throughout the region. It wouldn't be a surprise if a similar route enabled the virus to spread unchecked. The regime's toxic blend of religion, militancy, and authoritarianism have come together in the worst possible way at the worst time in a fragile region.
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| U.S. soldier in South Korea tests positive as coronavirus pandemic fears grow Posted: 25 Feb 2020 07:02 PM PST  As 52 more deaths and 406 new cases were reported in mainland China, here is the latest for Tuesday, Feb. 25.
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| This Unit Had Some of the Finest Marine Aces of World War II Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:30 AM PST  They won many medals.
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| The Trump administration is reportedly fighting over coronavirus spending Posted: 25 Feb 2020 07:53 AM PST  The coronavirus outbreak has sparked plenty of infighting and finger-pointing within the Trump administration, according to a new report.Politico on Tuesday reported that Trump officials including acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and domestic policy chief Joe Grogan have "turned their fire" on Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar as he leads the administration's coronavirus response, feeling that he "poorly coordinated the strategy, failed to escalate the potential risks to Trump and pushed for a multibillion-dollar emergency-funding request that they initially viewed as extreme."This funding, in fact, had been a "major sticking point" between the White House and Azar before the administration ultimately sought $2.5 billion from Congress on Monday, Politico writes. In response, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the administration's request "long overdue" but "completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency," NBC News reports. Additionally, Politico reports, there was "finger-pointing and second-guessing for days" after 14 Americans with coronavirus were evacuated from a cruise ship recently. Amid all this consternation, Politico writes at least two of Azar's allies are now "worried that the secretary's job is at risk if the coronavirus response goes poorly."Speaking of worrying, Trump allies and advisers are reportedly fearful of how a "botched" response to the coronavirus could affect the economy, although Trump himself continues to downplay the crisis, tweeting on Monday that "the coronavirus is very much under control in the USA." More stories from theweek.com Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity The Boston Globe endorses Elizabeth Warren. So does Ann Coulter, kind of. MSNBC's Chris Matthews hounds Warren on why she thinks Bloomberg is lying about telling a staffer to 'kill' her pregnancy
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| Mexico president ties shootout dead to drug consumption Posted: 26 Feb 2020 03:42 PM PST  President Andrés Manuel López Obrador suggested Wednesday without offering evidence that most of those who die in Mexico's cartel- and gang-fueled firefights are high on drugs or intoxicated, prompting criticism and questions about whether the claim was accurate. Speaking to journalists in his morning news conference, López Obrador said rising drug consumption rates must be reversed if the country is to guarantee peace and security after years of rising, record-setting homicide statistics. "Just so you have the number, 60% of those who lose their life each day, 60% of those killed in clashes, it is shown that they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but primarily drugs," the president continued.
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| The world's biggest iPhone maker has hired the scientist known as the 'SARS hero' to oversee its reopening as it resumes production Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:07 AM PST  Apple's main manufacturing partner, Foxconn, just hired the head of China's coronavirus investigation as an adviser.
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| Joe Biden has big lead in South Carolina primary, per Clemson University's Palmetto Poll Posted: 26 Feb 2020 10:48 AM PST  Clemson University's Palmetto Poll shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a big lead and Tom Steyer in second place.
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| He Was Found Dead in a Lake From a Benadryl Overdose. Now His Wife Has Been Charged With Murder. Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:44 PM PST  One frigid morning in February 2018, Larry Isenberg and his wife, Lori, woke up before dawn to watch the sunrise from their boat on the picturesque Lake Coeur d'Alene in northern Idaho.But as the couple guided their boat along Sun Up Bay, their motor stalled, prompting Larry Isenberg to give it a look. Then, the unthinkable happened: the longtime forester fell overboard—just out of reach of his horrified wife. At least that was the story Lori Isenberg told authorities as she explained why her husband's body was floating somewhere in the vast lake stretching south for 25 miles."I cannot describe the pain I feel," Isenburg wrote in an email to friends obtained by The Spokesman-Review after the incident, explaining that she tried to grab for her husband but tripped on the heater and hit her head. "It is like half of me is gone."For 18 Years, Cops Thought He Was Eaten by Alligators. Now His Wife Has Been Convicted of His Murder.For two years, the drowning was believed to be the result of a tragic accident—but Idaho authorities now believe that his wife, a convicted embezzler, murdered Larry Isenberg, who was discovered in the lake with a lethal amount of Benadryl in his system."As far as we all knew, they had a great marriage," Dean Isenberg, her step-son, told KHQ on Tuesday. "It was something you could model your own relationship off of. It seemed like everything was perfect. Dad was happy. No one knew what was going on behind the scenes."Isenburg, 66, was arrested Monday on a first-degree murder charge for allegedly planning her husband's February 2018 death at the popular vacation spot near Worley, Idaho, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office told The Daily Beast. While the details of the slaying remain unknown, the 66-year-old is facing special charges tied to murders that may involve poison."I suspected, I didn't want to believe it, but I definitely suspected," the stepson said.The murder charges come over a year after Isenberg pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud in January 2019 for embezzling money from her former employer after going on the run for two months. She was sentenced to five years in federal prison and is currently being held on a $2 million bond at Kootenai County Jail, according to online jail records. On Feb. 13, 2018, Isenburg told police the pair had gotten up early to see the sunrise at Sun Up Bay, bringing along a space heater to keep warm. At some point, her husband of 14 years fell overboard while trying to check the motor that had stalled. Wife Kills Husband, Admits It in a Bar BathroomBelieving her husband "possibly had a medical episode before falling into the water," Isenburg said she waited two hours to call authorities because she didn't want to leave the area where her husband had drowned—and had left her phone at home, according to a search warrant filed in Spokane Superior Court. The Spokane County Medical Examiner, however, concluded at the time the 68-year-old showed no "visible" signs of stroke or evidence of drowning, a spokesperson told The Daily Beast. Even more ominously, the Kootenai County Coroner also found that Larry Isenberg had lethal levels of diphenhydramine—an antihistamine found in Benadryl—in his system when he died.As authorities were still desperately searching the lake's bottom for her husband, Isenberg was charged on Feb. 26 with 40 counts of forgery and a charge of grand theft for embezzling half-a-million dollars over an 18 months span from her former employer, the nonprofit North Idaho Housing Coalition (NIHC). Three days after her arrest, Larry Isenberg was found in Lake Coeur d'Alene. But by that point Lori Isenberg had already fled town, missing her first arraignment on the forgery and grand theft charges, which prompted a $500,000 warrant for her arrest."The news came out with the embezzlement case on the exact same day," Dean Isenberg said. "It was too coincidental for me. If it wouldn't have come out the way it did, we would have just thought [my dad's death] was a horrible accident."St. Louis Woman Looked Up 'What to Do if Your Husband Is Upset You Are Pregnant' Before Her Murder: WarrantsThe former NIHC executive director was on the run for two months before she eventually turned herself in to police in July 2018. Months later, four of her daughters pleaded guilty to taking money that their mom had embezzled. A search warrant for July 2018 also states that about a month before her husband died, handwritten changes were made to his will that left almost all of his estate to Lori's six children—only leaving a small portion to Larry's two adult children from another marriage.Despite his stepmother's checkered past, Dean Isenberg said his family is completely shocked by the allegations against Lori. "This blindsided us," he said. "My dad was my world."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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| China to Russia: End discriminatory coronavirus measures against Chinese Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:57 AM PST  China's embassy in Russia has demanded authorities in Moscow end what it said are discriminatory anti-coronavirus measures against Chinese nationals, saying they are damaging relations and alarming Chinese residents of the Russian capital. The complaint, detailed in an embassy letter to the city's authorities and published by Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta late on Tuesday, deplored what it called "ubiquitous monitoring" of Chinese nationals, including on public transport in Moscow. Russia, which enjoys strong political and military ties with Beijing, does not currently have any confirmed cases of coronavirus, but has temporarily barred many categories of Chinese nationals from entering the country.
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| ‘Don’t You Think You Ought to Check?’: Sen. Kennedy Demands DHS Chief Provide ‘Straight Answers’ on Coronavirus Spread Posted: 25 Feb 2020 08:57 AM PST  Senator John Kennedy on Tuesday demanded answers from acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf regarding the likely extent of the domestic coronavirus outbreak, saying the American people deserve "straight answers" about the deadly virus.During a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Kennedy asked Wolf how many cases of people infected with the coronavirus the U.S. anticipates having."You're head of Homeland Security, and your job is to keep us safe. Do you know today how many the experts are predicting?" the Louisiana Democrat-turned-Republican said."We only know that, again, we anticipate those numbers to grow in the U.S.," Wolf responded, saying that he cannot provide an "exact number.""Don't you think you ought to check on that?" Kennedy asked. "You're the secretary. I think you ought to know that answer."Kennedy also asked Wolf for answers on the mortality rate of the coronavirus, whether the U.S. has enough respirators, and when a vaccine is expected."You're the secretary of Homeland Security and you can't tell me if we have enough respirators?" Kennedy said, adding that lawmakers previously heard separate testimony that the U.S. does not have enough respirators.Kennedy also pointed out that the DHS chief's testimony does not match up with information put out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."Your numbers aren't the same as CDC's. Don't you think you ought to contact them and find our whether you're right or they're right?" Kennedy said. "The American people deserve some straight answers on the coronavirus and I'm not getting them from you."Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen afterwards urged Wolf to hold "open briefings" about the situation surrounding the coronavirus, adding, "I didn't hear anything this morning that I haven't read in the newspaper."A slew of new countries on Monday confirmed their first cases of the virus, a respiratory illness that originated in China and has infected close to 80,000 people in 37 countries, killing at least 2,600.
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| Trump news — live: President mocked and markets slide as CDC issues grave warning over potential coronavirus pandemic Posted: 25 Feb 2020 08:24 AM PST  A Donald Trump press conference in India descended into a bitter row with CNN reporter Jim Acosta on Tuesday after the president criticised the journalist's network and the latter replied: "I think our record on delivering the truth is a lot better than yours sometimes."Trump has meanwhile secured a lucrative arms deal with the fellow superpower's prime minister Narendra Modi, a venture he risked putting in jeopardy by refusing to eat any of the vegetarian delicacies – notably broccoli samosas - laid out for him at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad on Monday afternoon.
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| Elizabeth Warren says Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand regularly check in on her Posted: 25 Feb 2020 12:16 PM PST  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is on good terms with some Democratic exes.While she can't claim to have raised thousands of dollars from ex-boyfriends, like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) can, Warren has remained quite friendly with several ex-Democratic presidential candidates. In an interview with NBC News, Warren said she's texted nature photos with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) shortly after he dropped out of the race, talked math with Andrew Yang, and kept in touch with former Housing Secretary Julián Castro, who has endorsed her run.But she says Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have particular insight into what NBC News calls the "loneliness" of the campaign trail, something Warren described as like "living in a movie that is running at high speed with everything coming so quickly.""Kamala and Kirsten, in particular, ask me am I getting rest? Am I eating? And am I having some fun out there?," said Warren of her fellow women candidates. "It's a very personal experience to run. Running for president can be thrilling but also very lonely," she said. "The candidate stands alone."Warren even got back in good graces with former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) after taking him down a few pegs in one of the first debates. Delaney said her call to wish him well after he dropped out was "quite lengthy and quite in-depth" and showed "she's not entirely self-absorbed. She actually listens."Read more about Warren's relationship with her ex-competitors at NBC News.More stories from theweek.com Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity Donald Trump tells biographer he's the same now as he was in first grade Is Bernie Sanders the Democrats' Goldwater, Reagan, or Trump?
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| Cuba buys fuel shipment, vessel and all, due to US sanctions Posted: 26 Feb 2020 03:17 PM PST  Cuba purchased a shipment of oil -- and the vessel holding it -- as its owner refused to dock at the island nation over fears of violating US sanctions, the government said Wednesday. Authorities in Cuba -- which is facing a fuel shortage -- did not specify where the fuel or ship came from, nor when the purchase took place. "We have reached the point where we had to buy a ship near our shore -- buy the ship -- because the owner refused to dock with the fuel on board," Transport Minister Eduardo Rodriguez said.
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| South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof staged death row hunger strike Posted: 25 Feb 2020 03:53 PM PST  White supremacist mass murderer Dylann Roof staged a hunger strike this month while on federal death row, alleging in letters to The Associated Press that he's been "targeted by staff," "verbally harassed and abused without cause" and "treated disproportionately harsh."
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| Schumer counters Trump, announces $8.5-billion proposal for emergency coronavirus funding Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:03 AM PST  After President Trump's administration was criticized for requesting $2.5 billion to combat coronavirus, Schumer requested $8.5 billion.
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| US Supreme Court upholds death sentences of Arizona man Posted: 25 Feb 2020 07:15 AM PST  A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the death sentences for an Arizona inmate who was convicted of killing two people in home burglaries nearly 30 years ago and now wants a jury to consider abuse he suffered as a child. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the court's conservative justices, rejected the arguments of James Erin McKinney that he deserved a new sentencing hearing so a jury could decide whether he should face death or life in prison. McKinney also argued that courts have not fully considered the horrific physical abuse he suffered as a child.
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| China just banned the trade and consumption of wild animals. Experts think the coronavirus jumped from live animals to people at a market. Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:09 AM PST  Experts think the coronavirus jumped from animals to people in a market in Wuhan, China. Officials have now banned the wildlife trade nationwide.
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| Ukraine Is Getting Stronger: What If It Could Take on Russia? Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:59 PM PST  Or is that just silly?
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| ‘I’m Coming for You’: Biden Threatens Gun Makers at South Carolina Rally Posted: 25 Feb 2020 06:41 AM PST  Joe Biden warned gun manufacturers during a speech in South Carolina on Monday night that "I'm coming for you, and I'm taking you down."Biden has cast himself as a relative moderate in recent months on gun-control. His campaign's gun control plan, which was released in October, proposed reinstating an "assault-weapons ban" and universal background checks, but would not force the current owners of semiautomatic rifles to sell the guns to government, as a number of his opponents proposed.While he's avoided aggressively targeting gun owners, Biden has previously emphasized his commitment to holding gun manufacturers liable when one of their products is used in the commission of a crime."A guy has 12 assault weapons with bump stocks, which means you can fire it faster. You can pull the trigger faster," Biden said last week during a CNN town hall, referencing the Las Vegas hotel shooting. "Why in God's name should anyone, anyone, anyone, anyone be able to own that? It's just wrong, and we've got to — and I promise you, as president, I am going to get these guys."> I promise you that if I am elected president, we will hold gun manufacturers accountable for the carnage they have caused. pic.twitter.com/b1HLGdFyeF> > -- Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) February 24, 2020As Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) has risen in the polls, Biden has taken to criticizing the Vermont lawmaker's early career record on gun control, pointing out that Sanders, who was endorsed by the NRA in his 1990 congressional race, voted against gun control legislation on a number of occasions as a young House member."It's just flat-out immoral, it's just flat-out immoral," Biden said Thursday at a meeting with members of the anti-gun group Moms Demand Action in Nevada. "You know, committed Republicans and some Democrats — like Bernie Sanders — voted five times, five times against background checks and waiting periods; notwithstanding the fact that millions of people were denied having access to weapons of destruction because they didn't qualify."
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| How Can Bernie Sanders Pay for Spending? Easily, Say Treasury Markets Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:30 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential front-runner Bernie Sanders is pledging to spend big and fund it all with new taxes, drawing flak from rivals and analysts who say his budget numbers don't add up.But bond investors say they don't really need to. And more and more economists are inclined to agree.It's never been cheaper for the U.S. government to borrow money. In the past few days, as Sanders fended off the "how will you pay for it" questions about his plans for universal health and childcare, yields on 10-year and 30-year Treasuries were hitting all-time lows.Fear of the coronavirus is driving the latest plunge. Yet interest rates have broadly been in decline for about 40 years, even as the national debt has lately headed in the opposite direction. That's forced a big rethink among economists. They used to fret about the shortfalls that result when government spending exceeds revenue. They sound much more relaxed nowadays.'That's the Worry'Modern Monetary Theory, an unorthodox new school of economics, can claim to have been ahead of that curve."Putting too big a demand on resources, and causing inflation -- that's the worry about deficit spending," said Randall Wray, a senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute and one of MMT's founders. "But we don't have any inflation pressures now."That used to be a lonely argument, but it's becoming less so. Mainstream economists like Larry Summers and Paul Krugman have been critical of MMT -- and of Sanders' expensive plans -- but they agree that public debt ranks way down America's list of problems.Bond markets have been unfazed as deficits widened toward $1 trillion, almost 5% of gross domestic product, under President Donald Trump -- likely pushing federal debt held by the public above 80% of GDP this year."I don't think we can learn that much from debt ratios for advanced countries. What matters more is the market's expectations of inflation," said Kallum Pickering, senior economist at Berenberg in London. And those "seem to be pretty low for now."That could change if a Democratic president piled more deficit spending on top of Trump's.'Fiscal Taps'"If we turn on the fiscal taps through debt financing, as long as the politics doesn't overwhelm the economic fundamentals, bond yields should gradually rise from here," said Pickering. But he expects any increase to be "modest" by past standards.MMT's core argument is that countries like America, which borrow in their own currencies, can't go broke. Until inflation kicks in, or threatens to, they don't need to match every dollar of outlays by raising an equal amount of taxes –- and they can control borrowing costs via central banks.Sanders has one of MMT's leading lights on his team. Stephanie Kelton, a professor at Stony Brook University in New York whose forthcoming book is titled "The Deficit Myth," has advised on both his presidential runs, after Sanders hired her to work on the Senate budget committee.Still, Sanders -- who aims to spend federal cash on a scale unprecedented in recent U.S. history, isn't framing his plans quite the way MMT would. He says he'll find revenue to pay for them all.Medicare for All on its own would cost an estimated $47 trillion over a decade, according to Sanders. That would be about 17% of GDP, based on government projections. It would be less than the U.S. is forecast to spend on health with its current public-private system, allowing Sanders to argue that his plan would save dollars as well as lives -– but the money would shift onto the government's books.Late Monday, Sanders published funding proposals including new taxes on households, businesses, financial transactions and personal wealth. Democratic rivals said the numbers fell short of covering the whole bill –- amplifying a case they'd already been making.Get ComfortableIn Tuesday night's candidate debate, Michael Bloomberg said that "we just cannot afford some of this stuff people talk about" and Amy Klobuchar said of Sanders' plans: "The math does not add up."(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)"Some of our opponents, who are good people, are struggling to tell you how in God's name they're going to pay for anything," Joe Biden told supporters in November. Democrats need to get "more comfortable" with talking about how to rein in deficits and debt, Pete Buttigieg said in New Hampshire this month.In November, whoever gets the nomination will be up against a president who's taken the opposite approach. Trump has seemed comfortable expanding public debt –- and he's gotten an economic boost as a result.The U.S. is running "kind of Reagan-era deficits right now," Trump's economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said this week. "I don't think that interferes with growth whatsoever."'Waves of Lending'By using the budget to juice an economy that had already been growing for years -- something not attempted in the U.S. since the 1960s -- Trump broke with orthodoxy. But there are signs he'll run a more fiscally conservative campaign in November.Trump's budget proposal to Congress this month, though it has little chance of getting passed, promised spending cuts almost across the board. Kudlow said he's "staggered" by the scale of Sanders' tax-and-spend plans. "This stuff is so far to the left, it does amount to socialism," he said on CNBC.Step back from the 2020 fray, and another reason for bigger deficits under both parties comes into view, according to James Galbraith, a professor of economics at the University of Texas.Before the 2008 crash, private debt was driving the U.S. economy. Credit to households and businesses expanded for decades –- until it stalled. That's when public borrowing stepped in to fill the gap, just as it had in Japan a decade earlier.Since the early 1980s, "fiscal policy was withdrawn from the field -- except in a major emergency -- and the economy grew on waves of bank lending," said Galbraith, whose father John Kenneth Galbraith was one of America's most famous economists and served under four Democratic administrations from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson.Take that away and "you've got to have other things driving the economy, creating wages and jobs," said Galbraith. "And this is going to show up in the budget on the fiscal side."To contact the reporters on this story: Ben Holland in Washington at bholland1@bloomberg.net;Liz Capo McCormick in New York at emccormick7@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Ana MonteiroFor 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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| Teacher who allegedly washed out student’s mouth with hand sanitiser receives 10-day suspension Posted: 25 Feb 2020 01:12 PM PST  A Florida middle school teacher has reportedly been suspended for putting hand sanitizer in a student's mouth after he wouldn't stop chatting during class.NBC News said Guyette Duhart, a science teacher at Polo Park Middle School in Wellington, allegedly admitted holding the bottle to the child's mouth after he kept talking in class, but she denied pumping the sanitiser, NBC News reported.
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| Warren thanks Cherokee Nation citizens for holding her 'accountable' for falsely identifying as Native American Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:51 AM PST  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) again apologized Wednesday for previously incorrectly claiming tribal heritage and releasing DNA results that claimed to reveal she had Native American ancestry. The most recent apology was in response to a letter from several members of the Cherokee Nation, as well as members of other tribes standing in solidarity, calling on her to go beyond acknowledging her mistakes and do her part to dispel beliefs spread by white people claiming Native heritage.The letter asked Warren to unequivocally state she and her ancestors are white, explain that "only tribal affiliation and kinship determine Native identity," and that "Native people are the sole authority on who is — and who is not — Native."In a response letter, Warren affirmed she understood all three of those points, and thanked the Cherokee Nation for holding her "accountable," while also highlighting actions she has taken as a lawmaker as well as provisions she has included in her presidential campaign plans with tribal interests in mind.Warren did push back in one instance, however. The signatories of the letter said Warren's actions were part of a "long and violent history" of "white members of fake 'tribes'" being rewarded federal contracts "set aside for minority business owners." Warren said she "appreciated my incorrect identification as Native was loaded given the history," but distanced herself from the aforementioned cases because she "never benefited financially or professionally" from her claims. Read the Cherokee Nation's letter here and Warren's response 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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| Indonesia's low-lying capital flooded for second time this year Posted: 24 Feb 2020 06:56 PM PST  Torrential rain flooded Indonesia's overpopulated capital on Tuesday for the second time this year, paralyzing wide areas and prompting rescue workers to evacuate people by boat from murky, brown waterways. Jakarta was hit by some of the heaviest rain since records began at the beginning of the year, causing floods that killed more than 60 people and displaced about 175,000. Indonesia's weather agency linked the rains to tropical cyclones, but the agency head also said such extreme weather events were happening with greater intensity and more frequently.
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| 7-year-old died 1 minute into tonsil surgery, says parents Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:23 AM PST  Parents of a 7-year-old South Carolina girl said she died one minute into surgery to have her tonsils removed. Paisley Elizabeth Grace Cogsdill died Friday at a medical center in Greenwood, WHNS-TV reported. Family members said the girl snored in her sleep but was otherwise healthy.
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| Body cam captures 6-year-old's tearful pleas during arrest Posted: 25 Feb 2020 11:03 AM PST  A police officer's body camera shows a 6-year-old Florida girl crying and begging officers not to arrest her as one fastens zip ties around her wrists at a charter school. The video that Kaia Rolle's family shared with the Orlando Sentinel and other media outlets Monday shows the girl being arrested in September for kicking and punching staff members at her Orlando charter school. "What are those for?" Kaia asks about the zip ties in the video.
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| South Korea is testing 200,000 members of a doomsday church linked to more than 60% of its coronavirus cases Posted: 25 Feb 2020 02:20 AM PST  It is the latest drastic step taken by authorities in South Korea, where more people have caught the coronavirus than any nation other than China.
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| Erdogan rules out even 'smallest step back' in Syria's Idlib Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:19 AM PST  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday vowed Turkey would not take even the "smallest step back" in an escalating stand-off with Damascus and Russia over the northern Syrian region of Idlib. Meanwhile, a meeting between Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, could be in the pipeline, the Turkish foreign minister said, ahead of a possible summit including EU heavyweights Germany and France to find a political solution to the Idlib crisis. "We will not take the smallest step back in Idlib," Erdogan told his ruling party's lawmakers in parliament in Ankara.
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| Beijing’s Handling of Coronavirus Has Undermined Chinese Public’s Trust in State Media Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:51 AM PST  China's government is facing widespread criticism from its own citizens over its handling of the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus.Beijing has launched a massive propaganda campaign with stories of Chinese heroism in the struggle to contain the coronavirus, meant to unify the country's citizens behind the government. However, the government's efforts have faced scorn on Chinese social media, where citizens are openly complaining about the government's response to the crisis, New York Times reported Wednesday.The Times cited a blog post by a lawyer, Deng Xueping, excoriating the government over the coronavirus. Deng mentioned a story circulated on state media about a woman who was treated at a Wuhan hospital, but liked staying in the hospital so much that she didn't want to leave."When many patients in Wuhan were struggling to get treatment, our TV camera chose to turn to one happy outpatient," Deng wrote in the post. "By magnifying one individual's happiness while hiding the sufferings of most people there, it's hard to say such coverage was truthful about the epidemic."Some stories put out by state media are completely unbelievable. A newspaper in the city of Xi'an in central China was forced to retract a story detailing how a nurse's newborn twins asked their father where their mother had gone. The Times cited another Chinese newspaper which reported that another nurse's husband, who has been in a vegetative state since 2014, would smile whenever he "heard" his wife's name, "as if he knew that his wife was engaged in a great endeavor."There is also widespread anger over the government's initial condemnation of eight doctors who tried to warn others about the outbreak of the SARS-like illness in Wuhan in late December-early January, before the outbreak took hold in earnest. One of those doctors, Li Wenliang, tried to warn medical school friends of the illness.After Li was reprimanded by the local Wuhan government for spreading "rumors," he contracted the virus from a patient he did not know was infected. Li has since died.China has also changed its diagnostic criteria for the coronavirus multiple times, leading to confusion over the number of confirmed cases in the country. A health official from Hubei Provice, the epicenter of the outbreak, has accused the government of a lack of transparency and accuracy regarding its reporting of cases.
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| ABC News suspends veteran correspondent over comments captured in undercover Project Veritas video Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:07 PM PST  ABC News said it suspended veteran correspondent David Wright because his comments hurt the network's "reputation for fairness and impartiality."
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| A record high: 1 in 10 eligible American voters are immigrants Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:06 AM PST  The number of immigrants eligible to vote has risen 93 percent — from 12 million in 2000 to 23.2 million in 2020.
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| Hunter Biden Stalls On Child Support Deposition Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:29 PM PST  He really doesn't want to testify...
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| Glenn Beck, Steve King Go Conspiracy Crazy Over DHS Official’s Death Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:20 AM PST  This week: * Right-wing pundit's death fuels conspiracy theories. * The_Donald's Reddit meme cache on its last legs. * It's CPAC time!* * *Pundit's death sparks new conspiracy theories* * *The death of a former Department of Homeland Security employee last week has caught the attention of prominent conspiracy theorists, who are pinning it on none other than Barack Obama's deep state agents. But so far, the people promoting the conspiracy theories—including Glenn Beck and Rep. Steve King (R-IA)—don't really have any evidence that the death is even a murder.On Friday, sheriff's deputies in Amador County, California, found the body of Philip Haney, a former DHS employee, near an RV stop. While Haney's death is still under investigation, a sheriff's press release said Haney had suffered a "self-inflicted" gunshot wound. Haney, 66, had been briefly famous on the right as a DHS "whistleblower" during the Obama administration, appearing at a congressional hearing and on Fox News to promote his claims that Obama officials had squashed his investigations into Islamic terrorism in the United States. Since then, Haney had claimed he was on a "special covert assignment" against prominent Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a prominent Muslim-American Democrat. Even as all the evidence around Haney's death points to a suicide, Trump allies in right-wing media and government were quick to claim he had been the victim of a sinister murder plot. On Twitter, King implied that Haney had been killed for speaking out against Obama. "He was a target because of all he knew of Islamic terrorist coverups," King wrote. "He insured his life by archiving data that incriminated the highest levels of the Obama administration. Phil Haney didn't kill himself."Fox News contributor Sara Carter tweeted that Haney had been "murdered." Glenn Beck, now fully done with his attempted NeverTrump transformation and sliding anew into the crazed blackboard-theorizing Beck of the past, made dark insinuations about Haney's demise too. "He didn't kill himself," Beck said, hunched over his microphone in a camouflage jacket. "No man who speaks like Philip Haney did goes off and kills himself."Of course, it's not unusual for a mysterious death to be folded into a broader conspiracy theory—with the still-unsolved July 2016 murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich as probably the most prominent recent example. But it's remarkable how fast prominent conservatives, including an elected official, have jumped to claiming that Haney had been killed in some elaborate murder plot. To a large degree, it reflects the mainstreaming of conspiracy theory thinking within the GOP and conservative media apparatuses. The Amador Sheriff's Office, suddenly thrust into a situation where columnists are calling for an independent Justice Department investigation into Haney's death, didn't respond to my requests for comment. On Monday, the sheriff said the FBI was investigating Haney's laptop. Haney's death already appears to have some staying power beyond the usual internet news cycle. There's already talk of a tantalizing stash of documents to drive viewers' imagination, akin to Rich's laptop or the deleted Hillary Clinton emails. In this case, it's a thumb-drive of super-secret files Beck claims Haney kept on a chain around his neck. On Monday, Beck claimed he would tap Haney's chest when he saw him to make sure the thumb-drive was still there. "I was feeling the thumb drive, because there were documents that he kept around his neck," Beck said. "I only know what a few of them were. I wonder if that thumb drive was found on the body." Want this in your inbox? sign up now!* * *Reddit memelords in winter* * *Reddit administrators are cracking down on the "The_Donald" subreddit, threatening the existence of what's become both the most prominent pro-Trump site on the internet and a reliable source of memes for Trump's Twitter feed.Reddit brass have been at odds with The_Donald for years and made the forum harder to find last June after users advocated for violence against police officers. On Tuesday, they went further, ousting some of the subreddit's moderators and declaring that new moderators will need to be "vetted" by Reddit administrators before they can run the forum. A Reddit spokesperson confirmed the moves in an email to me. "Reddit may intervene from time to time when moderators are consistently in violation of our Moderator Guidelines, which can include removing a user's moderator status," the email reads. The_Donald's users haven't taken this well, turning the subreddit, briefly, into a home for memes aimed at Reddit administrators rather than Democrats. All of this likely means that The_Donald's time on Reddit and its access to Reddit's massive user base will soon come to an end. This won't be the end of The_Donald as a pro-Trump internet community, though. Sensing that an outright ban is in the offing, The_Donald's administrators have already set up a fallback site called "TheDonald.Win" and are encouraging users to migrate over. While TheDonald.Win looks just like a subreddit, it's independently run—and thus beyond the control of Reddit's administrators. Still, other right-wing groups that have been kicked off Reddit have struggled to gain traction with their own Reddit-style sites. QAnon believers who moved to another Reddit knock-off after their own Reddit bans, for example, have struggled to attract anything like the kind of Reddit-level user numbers on their backup sites. * * *What to watch for at CPAC* * *I'm off to the Conservative Political Action Conference this week for the right's annual celebration of all things Trump. But as with every CPAC, many of the more interesting stories about the direction of the conservative movement are taking place on the conference's sidelines. CPAC should see the latest clash between the right's white nationalist "groypers"—allied with prominent columnist Michelle Malkin—and conservatism's more establishment elements, with the groypers holding a rival event nearby. CPAC seems to have taken a harsher line this year on credentialing right-wing characters—last year's ban on anti-Muslim activist turned congressional candidate Laura Loomer is apparently still in place, and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes had his application for media credentials denied. Meanwhile, hapless conservative smear artists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman will be somewhere near CPAC for their annual botched press conference. Their angle this time is that the Roger Stone jury was hopelessly biased against him, based on some juror questionnaires they got their hands on. From what I've seen so far, though, this is going to be a flop. For example, Burkman and Wohl are focusing on jurors who said they watch MSNBC and CNN as "proof" that the jury was biased.Even some events from within CPAC's confines at Maryland's National Harbor resort promise to really be something. Former Superman Dean Cain is staging a dramatic reading of the Peter Strzok/Lisa Page text messages. As one of the few people unlucky enough to have already seen this bit in person a few months ago in D.C., I can confirm that Cain's mugging is as squirm-inducing as you could imagine.And then, according to the schedule, there's a "definitive rap battle" between capitalism and socialism. I'll be tweeting through all of it! 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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| Hong Kong is handing out $1,200 in cash to 7 million people Posted: 25 Feb 2020 08:47 PM PST  The big giveaway is an effort to boost the territory's damaged economy after months of political unrest.
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