| "This is a godsend for Trump": Democrat insiders admit Iowa chaos plays into President's hands Posted: 04 Feb 2020 09:52 AM PST  Democrats could not have feared an outcome worse than a presidential primary caucus frozen by a technical glitch and in-fighting among their candidates, allowing Donald Trump to pounce.From impeachment to the first 2020 votes to be cast, Democrats' hopes that they would have knocked the president down a peg have taken several blows. Rather than taking momentum into New Hampshire with perhaps two or three candidates looking more able to take him on, top Democrats are seizing on moral victories while the party's presidential campaigns are trading allegations about whether the process in Iowa was legitimate.
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| Lebanese-American who worked for Israel charged with murder Posted: 04 Feb 2020 04:22 AM PST  A military investigative judge charged a Lebanese-American man with murder and torture of Lebanese citizens Tuesday, crimes he allegedly committed during Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon, judicial officials said. Amer Fakhoury is accused of working as a senior warden at Khiam Prison, which was run by an Israel-backed Lebanese militia.
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| MSNBC Flips Out After Bernie Adviser Nina Turner Calls Bloomberg an ‘Oligarch’ Posted: 03 Feb 2020 05:52 PM PST  Moments before the Iowa Democratic caucuses kicked off Monday night, Bernie Sanders' national campaign co-chair Nina Turner sparked fireworks on the MSNBC set when she repeatedly described billionaire Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg as an "oligarch."Criticizing the Democratic National Committee for overhauling its debate requirements in a clear move to allow Bloomberg to qualify moving forward, Turner told MSNBC host Chris Matthews that American voters are concerned about "the oligarchs" being able to buy their way into elections."Do you think Mike Bloomberg is an oligarch?" Matthews, taken aback, exclaimed."He is," Turner shot back. "He skipped Iowa. Iowans should be insulted. Buying his way into this race, period. The DNC changed the rules. They didn't change it for Senator Harris. They didn't change it for Senator Booker. They didn't change it for Secretary Castro."Matthews then asked if Turner believed Bloomberg bought his way into the debates, prompting the former Ohio lawmaker to declare that he "absolutely did" and it was a "stain on democracy."After Matthews finished interviewing Turner, anchor Brian Williams turned to MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson, who apparently also had a strong reaction to Turner's assessment of Bloomberg."Calling Mike Bloomberg an oligarch has implications in this country that I think are unfair and unreasonable," he huffed. "I disagree with a lot of things Mike Bloomberg has done as a mayor. Oligarchy in our particular terminology makes you think of a rich person who got their money off of oil in Russia, who is taking advantage of a broken and dysfunctional system.""Mike Bloomberg is just a rich guy," Johnson continued. "Just because you're rich doesn't mean that you're an oligarch that abuses power. The power that Mike Bloomberg got access to was given to him by the voters of New York... It ain't the kind of language you should be using. I think it's dismissive, unfair and it's the kind of thing that blows up in your face if you become the nominee and you have to work with Mike Bloomberg three or four months from now. That's the issue Sanders people never seem to want to remember."Following a commercial break, MSNBC had Turner and Johnson debate her use of the term. The Sanders adviser, for her part, was unapologetic, saying it was "ironic" that "somebody would defend the wealthiest people in this country over the working people in this country." "That is the same message Bernie Sanders has to the everyday people of this nation, that I welcome the hatred of the elites because I am standing up for you," she added. "So cry me a river for the wealthiest."Johnson, meanwhile, contended that his issue was what the word "oligarch" implied while also claiming that Turner herself worked for someone who's part of the one percent, wondering if she would call Sanders an oligarch.Things continued to get more and more heated between the two, with Turner accusing Johnson of name-calling and "defending somebody who is buying his way through democracy" while Johnson complained that this was "just how you guys operate."Eventually, at the end of the very tense exchange, Matthews asked if she wanted to change her word for Bloomberg."No, he doesn't tell me what to say or how to change my words," she emphatically replied. "My word stands!"Fox News Host Grills Pete Buttigieg: How Can You Call Trump Racist After Super Bowl Ad?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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| An artist wheeled 99 smartphones around in a wagon to create fake traffic jams on Google Maps Posted: 03 Feb 2020 09:28 AM PST  Wherever the wagon full of phones went, Google Maps showed a traffic jam, displaying a red line and routing people around the area.
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| 2,000-pound great white shark pings off Florida Gulf coast Posted: 04 Feb 2020 04:13 PM PST  Unama'ki a 2,000-pound great white shark tagged by the research nonprofit OCEARCH, has pinged about 100 miles off of the shores of Northwest Florida.
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| Hong Kong virus patient dies as local transmissions increase Posted: 04 Feb 2020 03:17 AM PST  Hong Kong on Tuesday became the second place outside mainland China to report the death of a coronavirus patient as officials said they feared local transmissions were increasing in the densely populated city. The coronavirus has killed more than 425 people in China since spreading from the central city of Wuhan late last year. Most of the deaths in China have been in Wuhan and the rest of surrounding Hubei province, much of which has been under lockdown for almost two weeks.
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| U.S. announces more coronavirus cases, details quarantine plans for returning travelers Posted: 03 Feb 2020 10:06 AM PST  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday announced a second case of transmission of the new coronavirus within the United States and provided more detailed plans on how it will handle travelers returning from China as the country works to limit the outbreak. "We expect to see more cases of person-to-person spread," Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a conference call that included confirmation of a handful of new cases, bringing the U.S. total to 11. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is making nearly $250 million in emergency funds available to cover the cost of the response, an agency spokesman said on Monday.
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| Where Is the Scorpion? The Creepy Unsolved Mystery of America's Lost Nuclear Attack Submarine Posted: 04 Feb 2020 03:57 AM PST  We still don't have a good answer.
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| Britain receives first ‘Poseidon’ aircraft in bid to restore submarine-hunting muscle Posted: 04 Feb 2020 09:22 AM PST  The new planes will escort the country's nuclear submarines when deploying and keep tabs on undersea threats in the North Atlantic.
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| Senator Rand Paul outed the alleged Trump whistleblower on the floor of the Senate Posted: 04 Feb 2020 10:46 AM PST  After having his question denied by Chief Justice John Roberts, the junior senator from Kentucky read out a question that explicitly names the alleged whistleblower.
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| AP VoteCast: Iowa Democratic voters seek fundamental change Posted: 03 Feb 2020 02:06 PM PST  The first voters to make their choice in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination are desperate for fundamental change to the political system. Roughly two-thirds of Iowa caucusgoers said supporting a candidate who would transform how the system in Washington works was important to their vote, according to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of voters who said they planned to take part in Monday's Democratic caucuses in Iowa. The survey also found that two issues that have been front and center during the campaign were at the top of Iowa Democrats' minds: health care and climate change.
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| Warm water found at "vital point" under "doomsday glacier" Posted: 02 Feb 2020 10:05 PM PST  A news release on the findings called it an alarming discovery.
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| Ex-Fox News journalist Gretchen Carlson calls on Michael Bloomberg to release women from NDAs they signed as his employees Posted: 04 Feb 2020 01:56 PM PST  Michael Bloomberg has been repeatedly accused of making sexist remarks and sued for propagating a "culture of discrimination."
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| Why American Scientists Take Chinese Money Posted: 03 Feb 2020 03:30 AM PST  Harvard Chemistry Department chair Charles Lieber was charged this week with lying to the Defense Department about receiving funds from the Chinese government. Lieber allegedly took $1.5 million to open a research lab in China, as well as $200,000 monthly in cash and living expenses to conduct research for the Wuhan University of Technology.A pioneer in the field of nanowires — infinitesimally small conductors of electricity with a wide range of potential uses — Lieber is no small fry. "For a person with his status and reputation the work for him [in China] was not important, and it was not necessary for him to do that for the money," a Case Western Reserve professor who had worked with him told the Wall Street Journal. Indeed, Lieber received more than $15 million in grants from the American government. So why did he accept funding from China?U.S. government agencies including the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health dole out more than $150 billion in research grants each year. University scientists rely on that money to fund their labs. Because grants can make or break a career, professors spend an inordinate amount of time navigating the funding labyrinth. A 2007 study found that researchers spend 42 percent of their time writing grant proposals and ensuring compliance with the conditions of the grants they receive. Stringent regulations on everything from affirmative action to animal welfare place a needless burden on scientists, reducing their productivity. Since any given proposal has a 20 percent chance of being approved, researchers devote 170 days to proposal-writing for every grant they're awarded.In addition to the administrative burden, American funding programs push researchers toward low-risk, low-reward studies. Since papers are evaluated by the number of citations they generate, professors tend to focus on questions that guarantee a meaningful result, rather than taking risks on novel research that might fail. Though the latter is more likely to deliver high gains in the long run, delayed recognition of breakthrough research means that scientists in new fields may have to wait years before they see results, which reduces their ability to attract funding in the interim. A 2016 paper found that "funding decisions which rely on traditional bibliometric indicators . . . may be biased against 'high risk/high gain' novel research." As a result, American scientists tinker at the margins of existing research but rarely attempt breakthroughs. This partially explains the general slowdown of scientific progress over the past few decades.Enter China. In 2008, the Chinese Communist party (CCP) announced the Thousand Talents Plan (TTP), which was designed to recruit 2,000 high-quality foreign professionals within five to ten years. By 2017, the program had lured 7,000 foreigners — more than triple its target. As part of a broad push to achieve global technological supremacy, China has committed 15 percent of its GDP — equivalent to $2.1 trillion in 2019 — to human-capital development.The TTP doesn't require grant applications or regulatory compliance, either. Faced with a choice between a Byzantine funding apparatus at home and instant cash from China, more than 3,000 university researchers have opted for the latter. In return for that money, the CCP requires its researchers to turn over intellectual property to which they have access, as well as to sign agreements preventing them from disclosing the results of work conducted under Chinese patronage. Some scientists have concluded that those stipulations are worthwhile. And in a perverse sense, it is true that the Chinese system provides a great deal of academic freedom: no applications, no progress reports, no environmental standards. In a few cases, TTP-linked academics have even opened "shadow labs" in China that conduct research identical to what they are doing domestically. The effect is a wholesale transfer of American intellectual capital and property to our largest geostrategic foe.The TTP encompasses not only university labs but also U.S. government facilities. Federal agencies have discovered that employees downloaded classified information before visiting China, and an American defense contractor testified to the Senate that more than 300 U.S. government researchers had accepted TTP money right under the government's nose.In November 2019, the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations issued a long-overdue report on the TTP. The report recommended stricter grant-compliance provisions, stronger cybersecurity, and increased scrutiny of research facilities by American law-enforcement agencies. While these measures would partially combat Chinese intellectual-property theft, lawmakers in Washington should also reflect on why China's money is so alluring to American scientists.Partially, it's because there's a lot of it. While the White House has proposed cuts to the NSF and NIH budgets in recent years, the CCP has committed orders of magnitude more money to its recruitment programs. In addition to beefing up IP protections, Congress should allocate more funding to foundational research. But money alone won't solve the problem. As long as the federal grant-approval process remains sclerotic and risk-averse, American scientists will be unlikely to maintain their global preeminence. Federal agencies should roll back onerous regulations and give researchers more control over grant money and lab operations. By deemphasizing bibliometric criteria, they could also provide scientists more of the leeway necessary for scientific breakthroughs. Outside the public sector, tax incentives could increase the viability of novel research in private labs.The Chinese threat must be confronted head-on, but to truly neutralize it, America will also have to nurture its natural competitive advantage.
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| Nigeria to receive $308m stolen by ex-dictator: US Posted: 03 Feb 2020 01:33 PM PST  Nigeria is set to receive around $308 million seized from former military dictator Sani Abacha under a deal backed by the United States and the island of Jersey, US prosecutors said Monday. The sum is the latest to be recovered from the accounts of Abacha, an army officer who ruled Nigeria from 1993 until his death in 1998 aged 54, which sparked an ongoing search for hundreds of millions of dollars he stole and hid abroad. The repatriation of the money from Jersey, in the English Channel off the coast of northern France, follows a 2014 US court ruling authorizing the seizure of $500 million of cash laundered by Abacha in accounts worldwide, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
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| Shut out of WHO, Taiwan faces flight bans, delays in virus updates Posted: 03 Feb 2020 12:50 AM PST  Shut out of the World Health Organization, Taiwan faces a dual problem in battling the threat of a new coronavirus: it is being included as a high-risk area as part of China but is unable to get epidemic information firsthand. Taiwan is denied membership of most international bodies including the WHO, a U.N. agency, due to the objections of China, which considers the island a Chinese province with no right to participate unless it accepts it is part of China, something Taiwan's fiercely democratic government will not do. Taiwan has long complained about China belittling it on the international stage and forcing foreign governments and companies to refer to it as part of China.
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| Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer says he expects to leave Iowa 'with momentum' Posted: 04 Feb 2020 07:52 AM PST  Democratic presidential contender Tom Steyer on Monday said he expected to leave Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses "with momentum" that carries him later this month to Nevada and South Carolina, where he has shown more strength in opinion polls.
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| Official: Iowa caucus turnout on pace to match 2016 levels Posted: 03 Feb 2020 06:32 PM PST  Turnout for Monday's Iowa caucuses was on pace to match 2016 levels based on early data, a state party official said, even as some sites reported long lines and a record number of people participating as Democrats began choosing a nominee to take on President Donald Trump. The high-water mark for the contest was the 2008 Iowa Democratic caucuses, when nearly 240,000 participated and Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and other candidates.
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| White nationalist has long worked at conservative outlets under real name Posted: 03 Feb 2020 06:00 AM PST  Guardian findings support watchdog's report that 'Paul Kersey', a prominent author and activist, is actually Michael J ThompsonA new report has revealed that a prominent white nationalist author, activist and podcaster known as "Paul Kersey" has in fact worked for more than a decade at mainstream conservative institutions and media outlets under his real name.According to an investigation by the not-for-profit media outlet Right Wing Watch (RWW), the man who has worked under the Kersey pseudonym is in fact Michael J Thompson.The Guardian has uncovered additional material that supports reporting by RWW, and further indicates Thompson's role in moulding rightwing activists from a position near the heart of America's most influential conservative institutions.The RWW investigation, published on Monday, reveals the work of "Paul Kersey", whom it calls a "barely underground member of the white nationalist movement" and a fixture on the roster of racist media outlets and campaign groups.But it also shows that Thompson worked under his own name at institutions like the Leadership Institute, its media arm Campus Reform, and WND, formerly World Net Daily, a once-popular conspiracy-minded conservative outlet, as late as November 2018.It also shows how his WND position allowed him to move in professional circles that included white nationalists, writers from Breitbart and the Daily Caller and prominent Donald Trump supporters including Steve Bannon and Jack Posobiec.RWW determined Thompson's identity partly through a forensic voice test on audio recordings and partly through emails and testimony provided by Katie McHugh, a former far-right insider and Breitbart writer.Evidence from McHugh underpinned reporting by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that showed how Trump's close aide Stephen Miller attempted to insert white nationalist themes into Breitbart's coverage of the 2016 presidential election.Using the "Paul Kersey" pseudonym in online columns for outlets like VDare and American Renaissance, Thompson has for years whipped up racist fears about black crime; promoted racial paranoia about a demographic "Great Replacement" of white Americans; and spread falsehoods about the genetic inferiority of non-whites.According to RWW, he has run an influential far-right blog, Stuff Black People Don't Like, since 2009. The blog is focused on promoting false white nationalist ideas about race and crime.He has also regularly appeared as a guest on white nationalist podcasts including Red Ice, The Political Cesspool and Richard Spencer's AltRight Radio and is currently the co-host of a podcast produced by a prominent SPLC-designated hate group, American Renaissance.But in 2010, RWW reports, he was named in a press release from the Leadership Institute as working in their campus services program. The Guardian was able to confirm this by accessing an archived staff page for Campus Reform, the Leadership Institute's online vehicle for the prosecution of on-campus culture wars.The Leadership Institute is one of the longest-standing institutions in the US conservative movement, focused on training young activists. It claims to have trained 200,000 such young conservatives over 40 years, in skills including public speaking, campaigning and fundraising.In a series of archived snapshots from the Campus Reform staff page from September 2009 to July 2010, Thompson was listed as campus services coordinator for the western region. This suggests he began his pseudonymous white nationalist blog while employed by the Leadership Institute and its media arm.Campus Reform's website was established at the beginning of 2009, according to Domain Name System records. It has typically targeted so-called political correctness and professors it deems to be leftists.Using internet archiving services, the Guardian was able to access the full text of previously unreported Campus Reform articles by Thompson. In the bylines for those articles, written in 2009 and 2010, he is described as a "Campus Reform reporter".In the articles that were archived and accessible, Thompson does not openly use the vocabulary of white nationalism but does explore themes such as race and immigration.One May 2010 article criticizes Colorado State students for staging a walkout in protest against a hardline immigration law passed in Arizona in 2010 and highlights the involvement of some students with an immigrant rights group, La Raza.Another bemoans the decision of a Washington state public college, Evergreen State, to fund a visit by the academic and civil rights activist Angela Davis, calling her a "Marxist agitator".Many more articles offer instructions, guidance and assistance to conservative student activists.Thompson leads with complaints about political correctness; news of anti-abortion, pro-gun and media activism by conservative students; and exhortations to run for student government.In each case, he appeals to students to reach out to Campus Reform for information, training and organizing assistance.The Guardian has discovered evidence that Thompson was able to make connections between students and members of the conservative movement.A February 2011 guest post on the Campus Reform website by a senior at Utah State University describes that student's experiences as a sponsored attendee at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which remains the principal annual gathering of the conservative movement.The author writes: "Michael Thompson, my regional field coordinator … worked diligently to put me in contact with individuals and organizations willing to help me with future activism efforts on my campus."RWW reports that Thompson worked at WND from at least January 2012 to November 2018.Thompson, American Renaissance leader Jared Taylor and Joseph Farah of WND did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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| An Air Canada Boeing 767 circled Madrid for over 6 hours before making an emergency landing after it suffered engine damage during take off Posted: 04 Feb 2020 04:04 AM PST  The Air Canada plane was carrying 128 passengers and eight crew members, all of whom landed safely in Madrid.
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| Permafrost collapse is speeding climate change: study Posted: 04 Feb 2020 02:12 PM PST  Permafrost in Canada, Alaska and Siberia is abruptly crumbling in ways that could release large stores of greenhouse gases more quickly than anticipated, researchers have warned. Scientists have long fretted that climate change -- which has heated Arctic and subarctic regions at double the global rate -- will release planet-warming CO2 and methane that has remained safely locked inside Earth's frozen landscapes for millennia. It was assumed this process would be gradual, leaving humanity time to draw down carbon emissions enough to prevent permafrost thaw from tipping into a self-perpetuating vicious circle of ice melt and global warming.
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| Bloomberg Super Bowl Ad Inflates Child Deaths to Push for Gun Control Posted: 03 Feb 2020 05:15 AM PST  Former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg ran a 60-second Super Bowl ad which made the claim that "2,900 children die from gun violence every year," despite data showing that over half that number are actually adults.Bloomberg's ad, which highlights his gun-control advocacy, makes the claim without citation, but the stat appears to be drawn from a gun-control non-profit, Everytown for Gun Safety, which Bloomberg started in 2013.A report from Everytown states that "nearly 2,900 children and teens (ages 0 to 19) are shot and killed" annually, a number it pulled from the Center for Disease Control's online database over the years 2013 to 2017. Bloomberg's Super Bowl ad omitted the "teen" qualifier from its statement.> Everytown used a five year average of gun deaths between 0-19 years of age in the CDC's Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) to come up with 2,887 gun deaths per year among that age group. pic.twitter.com/dr3uuQTCaw> > -- Stephen Gutowski (@StephenGutowski) February 1, 2020The same data, when reviewed for the same time-frame while omitting legal adults — 18 and 19 year olds — shows an average of 1,499 annual gun deaths for children, or about 51 percent of the number claimed in Bloomberg's ad.Bloomberg spent approximately $10 million for the ad, part of a massive self-funded effort to campaign nationally, with data showing that the former mayor has spent over a quarter of a billion dollars in advertisement efforts so far, despite only joining the race in November.Gun control features prominently on Bloomberg's platform, which includes universal background checks and "red flag screening" measures.Bloomberg was criticized last month by the armed parishioner who took down a shooter at a Texas church in December, after suggesting at a campaign event that "You just do not want the average citizen carrying a gun in a crowded place."
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| Pompeo tells Kazakh reporter that barring NPR reporter sent 'a perfect message about press freedoms' Posted: 03 Feb 2020 12:20 AM PST  After the State Department revoked the press credentials of NPR's Michele Keleman for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's trip to Europe and Central Asia, in apparent retaliation for questions Pompeo didn't like from NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly, there were concerns about what kind of message Pompeo sent to the world about America's commitment to press freedoms. On Sunday, when Pompeo was in Kazakhstan — which has a dismal zero press-freedoms rating from Reporters Without Borders — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Aigerim Toleukhan asked Pompeo. He said the episode sends "a perfect message about press freedoms."Pompeo can be heard telling Kelly in their interview that he only wanted to discuss Iran, not Ukraine and whether he stood up for America's former ambassador to Kyiv when President Trump and his allies smeared her. Kelly said after the interview, Pompeo took her into a separate room and berated her at length, using profanities.Pompeo told Toleukhan he didn't have a "confrontational interview" with Kelly and insisted that reporters "get to ask me any questions, all questions." As for barring Keleman from his trip, Pompeo said he always brings "a big press contingent, but we ask for certain sets of behaviors, and that's simply telling the truth and being honest. And when they'll do that, they get to participate, and if they don't, it's just not appropriate" or even "fair to the rest of the journalists who are participating alongside them." That's when Toleukhan asked about what message that sends to the world, and Pompeo said "a perfect message."After Kelly told NPR listeners about Pompeo berating her, Pompeo accused her of lying twice, once while "setting up our interview" and again by not honoring her agreement keep their "post-interview conversation" private. Kelly said she never agreed to go off-the-record — it's unclear why she would — and she released emails showing she told Pompeo's staff she intended to ask him about both Iran and Ukraine.More stories from theweek.com Mitch McConnell's rare blunder John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi All the president's turncoats
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| F-35s For Everyone: How China Spied and Stole Its Way To Military Dominance Posted: 04 Feb 2020 03:00 AM PST  Or at least parity.
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| The Trump administration has made the U.S. less ready for infectious disease outbreaks like coronavirus Posted: 03 Feb 2020 05:51 AM PST  As coronavirus continues to spread, the Trump administration has declared a public health emergency and imposed quarantines and travel restrictions. However, over the past three years the administration has weakened the offices in charge of preparing for and preventing this kind of outbreak.Two years ago, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates warned that the world should be "preparing for a pandemic in the same serious way it prepares for war". Gates, whose foundation has invested heavily in global health, suggested staging simulations, war games and preparedness exercises to simulate how diseases could spread and to identify the best response.The Trump administration has done exactly the opposite: It has slashed funding for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its infectious disease research. For fiscal year 2020, Trump proposed cutting the CDC budget by US$1.3 billion, nearly 20% below the 2019 level. As a specialist in budgeting, I recognize that there are many claims on public resources. But when it comes to public health, I believe it is vital to invest early in prevention. Starving the CDC of critical funding will make it far harder for the government to react quickly to a public health emergency. Cutting funds and staffEvery year since taking office, Trump has asked for deep cuts into research on emerging diseases – including the CDC's small center on emerging and "zoonotic" infectious diseases that jump the species barrier from animals to humans. The new coronavirus is just the latest example of these threats. The CDC's program focuses on infectious diseases ranging from foodborne illnesses to anthrax and Ebola. It manages laboratory, epidemiologic, analytic and prevention programs, and collaborates with state and local health departments, other federal government agencies, industry and foreign ministries of health. In 2018, Trump tried to cut $65 million from this budget – a 10% reduction. In 2019, he sought a 19% reduction. For 2020, he proposed to cut federal spending on emerging infectious and zoonotic diseases by 20%. This would mean spending $100 million less in 2020 to study how such diseases infect humans than the U.S. did just two years ago. Congress reinstated most of this funding, with bipartisan support. But the overall level of appropriations for relevant CDC programs is still 10% below what the U.S. spent in 2016, adjusting for inflation. Even worse, in 2018 the administration disbanded its own global health security team, which was supposed to make the U.S. more resilient to the threat of epidemics. This unfortunate decision was part of a reorganization that former national security adviser John Bolton carried out shortly after arriving at the White House. Bolton eliminated the National Security Council's global health security and biodefense directorate, and reshuffled its team of world-class infectious disease experts. In response, two highly respected leaders in the field – Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer, the NSC's senior director for global health security and biodefense, and Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert – left the White House. Under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Ziemer had served as the U.S. point person for a coordinated global anti-malaria campaign that helped reduce deaths from the disease by 60% over 15 years. In 2016 he estimated that funding initiatives to reduce malaria generated a 36 to 1 return on investment because it averted so many deaths and debilitating illnesses. In 2018 Ziemer was instrumental in fighting the reemergence of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, traveling there and working with public health officials to reduce the spread of the dreaded disease. A clear and present dangerThere is no wall high enough to keep virulent pathogens from crossing national borders, and when they emerge there is a potential for widespread illness and death. Containing the first major Ebola epidemic in 2014-2016, which killed 11,000 people in West Africa, required an enormous global effort. Only 11 patients were treated for Ebola in the U.S., but that was because President Obama took the threat seriously, appointing an "Ebola czar" to coordinate U.S. preparedness and assistance. Now that the White House has evicted the NSC's global health security experts, it is not clear who in the Trump administration will be responsible for coordinating U.S. efforts in the event of a global pandemic. The new coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, has already spread to 25 countries. The CDC has confirmed that person-to-person transmission has occurred in the U.S. It will take a large-scale effort to contain this outbreak, and battling the virus requires money. Although the Gates Foundation and other charities give away billions of dollars to promote public health, such gifts are no substitute for the kind of specific, targeted scientific research into emerging diseases that the CDC and other federal agencies are uniquely designed to conduct. Fighting epidemics also requires planning to prepare and coordinate with hospitals, medical professionals, pharmacies, airlines, local government and the general public, which also requires funding.President Trump recently signed a $738 billion dollar defense budget – the highest level since World War II. It creates a new Space Force and funds research into dozens of remotely possible military threats. Relative to defense spending, the $6.5 billion CDC budget is tiny. But as I see it, deadly global pandemics and emerging biological and viral threats pose an equal or greater threat to our national security. As climate change warms the Earth, thousands of long-frozen dormant diseases are defrosting. And the World Health Organization reports that 75% of all emerging pathogens over the past decade are zoonotic diseases, most of which are understudied. As Bill Gates warned in 2018, "If history has taught us anything, it's that there will be another deadly global pandemic." I believe the U.S. must allocate more resources to research, detection and global prevention and communication efforts, not less.[ 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: * The Ebola outbreak highlights shortcomings in disease surveillance and response – and where we can do better * Why isn't learning about public health a larger part of becoming a doctor?Linda J. Bilmes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| Iowa might have just witnessed the start of a Democratic Party takeover Posted: 03 Feb 2020 02:05 AM PST  Takeaways from the wild final days of the Iowa campaign.
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| Sons of Confederate Veterans appeals Christmas parade denial Posted: 03 Feb 2020 10:18 PM PST ![Sons of Confederate Veterans appeals Christmas parade denial]( "Sons of Confederate Veterans appeals Christmas parade denial") A group that was denied permission to march in a Louisiana city's Christmas parade when it insisted on carrying Confederate battle flags asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to revive its lawsuit alleging constitutional violations. The permit for the Louisiana Sons of Confederate Veterans was denied in late 2015, months after the slayings of nine black worshippers at a South Carolina church by white supremacist Dylann Roof. In the city of Natchitoches, a nonprofit group that organized the annual parade denied a permit to the SCV after city officials expressed concerns that some in the city would be offended by the display of Confederate battle flags, and that protests might disrupt the procession.
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| A county in China is offering people $140 to tell on neighbors who have visited Wuhan, and another is threatening the death penalty to anyone deliberately spreading the coronavirus Posted: 04 Feb 2020 04:33 AM PST  China has been struggling to contain the coronavirus epidemic, which initially broke out in the central province of Hubei.
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| Norwegian won't issue $32,000 refund to family that canceled Asian cruise over coronavirus Posted: 03 Feb 2020 01:17 PM PST  A Maui woman said that when her family tried to cancel their upcoming Asia cruise, Norwegian wouldn't refund any of the $32,000 they'd already paid.
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| Thais who drove Chinese tourists among new virus cases Posted: 04 Feb 2020 09:09 AM PST  Two Thai drivers who came into contact with Chinese tourists were among six new cases of coronavirus reported Tuesday, bringing to 25 the number of infected in the kingdom. A Thai married couple recently returned from Japan and two Chinese tourists were the remaining new cases, according to Suwanchai Wattanayingcharoenchai of the disease control department. Thailand is struggling to balance control of a burgeoning health crisis with a lucrative travel sector that attracts more than 10 million Chinese tourists a year.
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| Don't Listen to Trump: the Travel Ban Isn't About National Security Posted: 04 Feb 2020 12:30 AM PST  It won't effect international terrorism.
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| Bloomberg to double TV spending, expand staff after Democrats' Iowa caucus chaos Posted: 04 Feb 2020 01:05 PM PST  DETROIT/DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday said he will immediately double his already massive nationwide television ad spending and expand his staff after the debacle of Iowa's failure to promptly announce its caucuses results. Bloomberg, 77, has spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars of his own fortune on TV advertising on an unconventional White House bid that has him skipping early voting states and entering the race on March 3, when 14 states will vote on Super Tuesday. As his rivals campaigned in Iowa and New Hampshire this week, the business tycoon and former New York mayor instead traveled to delegate-rich California and general election swing states Michigan and Pennsylvania.
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| Abu Dhabi's long-troubled Etihad sells 38 planes for $1B Posted: 04 Feb 2020 10:04 AM PST  Abu Dhabi's long-troubled Etihad Airways said Tuesday it would sell 38 aircraft to an investment firm and a leasing company in a deal valued at $1 billion, the latest cost-cutting measure by the United Arab Emirates' national carrier. Etihad said it would sell 38 aircraft — 22 Airbus A330s and 16 Boeing 777-300ERs — in the deal with investment firm KKR and leasing firm Altavair AirFinance.
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| Michigan college gift shop removes doll display depicting black leaders hanging from tree Posted: 04 Feb 2020 11:09 AM PST  Michigan State University removed an ornament display of African-American leaders hanging from a tree at the Wharton Center gift shop.
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| US submarine armed with 'low-yield' nuclear weapon, Pentagon says Posted: 04 Feb 2020 10:34 AM PST  The US Defense Department announced Tuesday that it has deployed a submarine carrying a new long-range missile with a relatively small nuclear warhead, saying it is in response to Russian tests of similar weapons. The move is a significant change in US defense posture that has raised concerns it could elevate the risk of a nuclear war. Critics worry that small nukes would be more likely to be used because they cause less damage, thereby lowering the threshold for nuclear conflict.
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| A doomsday couple is entangled in a web of suspicious deaths and missing children. Here's a timeline of the mysterious events connected to Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow. Posted: 04 Feb 2020 09:52 AM PST  The search for two missing children uncovered the tangled web of doomsday couple Chad Dadybell and Lori Vallow. Here's what you need to know.
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| 'We Will All Be Dead' By the Time Navy Gets to 12 Aircraft Carriers Says Acting Navy Secretary Posted: 03 Feb 2020 05:27 AM PST  Problem? Under current planning, the Navy won't grow to 12 flattops until 2065, Modly pointed out during an event at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C.
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| CDC Coronavirus Boss Calls Spread ‘Unprecedented’ as Cases Surge in U.S. and Abroad Posted: 03 Feb 2020 09:40 AM PST  Federal officials confirmed the number of U.S. cases of 2019 novel coronavirus had reached 11 on Monday, describing the increasingly deadly global crisis as "explosive" and "unprecedented," and suggesting it amounted to a potential pandemic.Two people over the weekend in California became the second domestic case of person-to-person transmission of the virus, said Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She painted a picture of a dogged but realist federal and state approach to containment that now included measures in place at 11 airports across the U.S."We expect to see more cases of person-to-person spread among close contacts," she told reporters, later adding, "The goal here is to slow entry of this virus into the United States."According to Messonnier, 167 people under investigation for the virus in the U.S. had tested negative for infection, and officials had tests on 82 people pending as of Monday morning. She said the CDC had isolated the virus and planned to submit materials to the Food and Drug Administration to facilitate the dispersal of potentially life-saving medical products that might help facilities be better able to identify cases without transmitting samples to CDC headquarters in Atlanta, as they have been.China Arrested Doctors Who Warned About Coronavirus Outbreak. Now Death Toll's Rising, Stocks Are Plunging.California has now become a domestic epicenter of infections, with two infections confirmed in Santa Clara County, in the Bay Area; two more in San Benito County, near Monterey, where a man appeared to infect his wife; and, previously, one case each in Orange County and Los Angeles County, in Southern California. On Saturday, a UMass-Boston college student returning from Wuhan was also confirmed to be infected. Initial U.S. cases were identified in suburban Seattle, in Chicago (where a woman was believed to have infected her husband upon returning from abroad), and in an individual affiliated with Arizona State University in Tempe.Worldwide, the novel coronavirus has been linked to at least 361 deaths in China and least one in the Philippines. It had infected at least 17,000 people in China as of Sunday, according to The New York Times, which suggested both that its rate of infection was higher than the 2002-03 SARS epidemic and that its mortality rate appeared to be significantly lower.On the call with reporters, CDC officials also offered more details on a travel ban imposed by way of a presidential proclamation Friday. New airports covered by the federal response include Dulles in Virginia, Newark Liberty in New Jersey, Dallas-Fort Worth in Texas, and Detroit Metropolitan. Foreign nationals who have visited China in the last 14 days will be barred from entering the country, with some exemptions. Both citizens and "exempted persons" will see additional health assessments and, if symptomatic, transferred and potentially quarantined for 14 days. Just how easily the disease might spread from infected people within the United States remains to be seen. While some studies and reports have suggested asymptomatic people can spread the illness, the CDC at one point pushed back on that conclusion, before nodding to growing evidence of the possibility on Friday.Then again, some people might be higher risks of spreading infection than others."There has been a lot of discussion among clinicians and scientists about what is something called the R0, which is how many people on average does one person infect," Davidson Hamer, a professor of global health and medicine at Boston University, told The Daily Beast. "The estimates are somewhere between 1.5 and 3, but again those are just estimates.""In SARS, there were what we call 'super spreaders,' where one person could infect or appear to infect many, many people," he added. "We don't understand how that occurred. We don't know if there are super spreaders with this novel coronavirus yet."—Susan Zalkind contributed reporting to this story.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| In unreleased Iowa poll, Sanders finishes 1st, Biden 4th Posted: 04 Feb 2020 06:32 AM PST  Remember that final poll of Iowa Democrats from CNN and the Des Moines Register that wasn't released because of an interviewing error? Well, FiveThirtyEight reportedly confirmed the final results. It would've been good news for Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who led the pack with 22 percent and 18 percent, respectively. That falls in line with an earlier report that media outlets increased their coverage of Warren after glimpsing the numbers.
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| Republican Senator Murkowski spares few in fiery impeachment speech Posted: 03 Feb 2020 06:09 PM PST  Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, an unpredictable moderate in a polarized Washington, on Monday declared she will vote to acquit Donald Trump, but not before leveling an attack against the president and fellow lawmakers of both parties during a partisan impeachment ordeal. On Wednesday the Senate is scheduled to wrap up a two-week impeachment trial and vote to either acquit or convict Trump on charges leveled by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives that the Republican president abused his powers and obstructed Congress' investigation of his dealings with Ukraine. It was no surprise that the 62-year-old senator attacked House Democrats, accusing them of a slapdash investigation of Trump's actions toward Ukraine and his alleged withholding of U.S. aid in order to pressure Kiev to investigate one of his political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.
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| France's Macron: Distancing of Russia a 'major error' for EU Posted: 04 Feb 2020 08:07 AM PST  French President Emmanuel Macron accused Russia of engaging in historical revisionism on World War II but said during a visit to Poland on Tuesday that a strong Europe needs to remain open to honest dialogue with Moscow. Macron addressed students and faculty members at Jagiellonian University in Krakow on the second day of his trip to Poland.
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| China says it will ban the trade in wild animals, like bats, believed to be behind the Wuhan coronavirus, and tighten supervision on 'wet markets' Posted: 04 Feb 2020 08:08 AM PST  Experts believe the Wuhan coronavirus likely started in a wet market, where live and dead animals are often sold in poorly regulated conditions.
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