| Trump tells Dems to nominate 'Mini Mike Bloomberg ASAP.' Should they take his advice? Posted: 05 Feb 2020 03:11 PM PST  Bloomberg made a bet that no consensus candidate would emerge by Super Tuesday and that Democrats would eventually turn to him (and his $60-billion fortune) to fill the void. Is it paying off?
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| Orange County Has Released More Than 2,000 Criminal Illegal Immigrants in Recent Years Due to California’s Sanctuary Law Posted: 06 Feb 2020 06:43 AM PST  Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes released data this week showing how California's SB54 sanctuary law allowed for over 2,000 illegal immigrants with outstanding ICE detainers to be released from custody over the last two years, with 411 of those later rearrested for additional charges.Barnes's data drew praise from acting ICE Director Matthew Albence, who released a statement Wednesday saying that "this is exactly what ICE has said time and again.""These policies do nothing but ensure that criminals are released back into the community, where many re-offend, instead of being turned over to ICE," Albence said. "These are preventable crimes, and more importantly, preventable victims. As the data released by Sheriff Barnes clearly demonstrates, all communities are safer when local law enforcement works with ICE."California's SB 54 restricts law enforcement from notifying, transferring, and communicating with ICE regarding certain offenders. The Trump administration has petitioned the Supreme Court to strike down the statuteBarnes's data shows that in 2019, 1,015 illegal immigrants were released from Orange County Jail with outstanding ICE detainers, with 238 of those — over 23 percent — later rearrested on additional charges. In 2018, a total of 1,106 inmates were released without notification given to ICE, and 173 of those ended up being rearrested by local law enforcement.Barnes said the data proved that "SB 54 has made our community less safe" and that "the two-year social science experiment with sanctuary laws must end." He also slammed the policy as leaving police unable "to protect our immigrant community.""The law has resulted in new crimes because my deputies were unable to communicate with their federal partners about individuals who committed serious offenses and present a threat to our community if released," he said.
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| Come to Rio, get robbed: Brazil tourism body shares awkward Instagram post Posted: 05 Feb 2020 12:54 PM PST  When marketing Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's national tourism agency typically focuses on the city's world-class beaches, samba-filled music scene and caipirinha-fueled parties. Violent crime is rarely listed among the attractions. "I just spent 3 days in Rio with my family, and in those 3 days my family and I were robbed and my 9-year-old sister witnessed a violent robbery," Instagram user "withlai" wrote in an Instagram Stories post.
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| An anti-Putin blogger was murdered in a French hotel, and the killing has the hallmarks of the Russian hit squad causing chaos in Europe Posted: 06 Feb 2020 05:28 AM PST  Imran Aliev, a 44-year-old Chechen blogger who opposed both Vladimir Putin and Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, was murdered in Lille last week.
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| 30 Side Table Designs That Do All the Things Posted: 06 Feb 2020 10:41 AM PST |
| Russia Hacked the Election, Trump Hacked Team Obama’s Brains Posted: 06 Feb 2020 10:13 AM PST  The Obama administration thought its warnings to Russia about ceasing its electoral interference in 2016 worked, according to the latest installment of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report into Russian election interference. "Senior administration officials told the Committee that they assessed that their warnings to Russia before the election had the desired effect, and that Russia undertook little to no additional action once the warnings were delivered," the report found. It was a fateful miscalculation. Much of the damage had already been done, from the months-long data exfiltration from the Democratic National Committee server that became public in July 2016 to the social-media disinformation effort that persisted long after the election. Indeed Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation found that the genesis of the Russian disinformation campaign occurred in 2014—which is consistent with Obama officials telling the Senate committee that they worried a weaponized leak of a phone call involving top diplomat Victoria Nuland heralded a new era of Russian disinformation. Every additional congressional investigation and intelligence-official assessment, including FBI Director Christopher Wray's last year, has concluded that Russian election-aimed efforts are expected in 2020. The majority of the administration's domestic response was to warn state election officials to harden their election infrastructure, while its response to Russia was to verbally warn them in private, in the fall of 2016, to stop the attack. A lack of Russian manipulation of the election data itself became confidence that the strategy had worked. FBI Director Christopher Wray Says Russia Remains a Threat to 2020 Election"[W]e had reason to believe they were in a position to do more and decided not to, which would lead me to conclude, although one can't be 100 percent sure of this, that our deterrence had some effect," Obama national security adviser Susan Rice told the Senate. Rice did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Several committee Republicans—Jim Risch (ID), Tom Cotton (AR), Marco Rubio (FL), John Cornyn (TX), and Ben Sasse (NE)—assailed the "Obama administration's inept response to Russia's persistent and complex campaign to influence and interfere in the most recent U.S. presidential election." They sidestepped highlighting an additional finding of the report: that fear of appearing partisan led the administration to inhibit its response.The heavily redacted Senate report found that although the FBI had warned the DNC about potential intrusions "numerous times throughout 2015 and 2016" from a "malicious cyber actor," many Obama administration officials were unaware of the Russian effort until the DNC publicized the data breach in July 2016. That was two months after then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned obliquely that foreign intelligence agencies were out to penetrate campaign data networks. "The administration was not fully engaged until some key intelligence insights were provided by the IC [intelligence community], which shifted how the administration viewed the issue," the report found. As has been widely reported over the past three years, part of that shift involved then CIA Director John Brennan, in August and September 2016, separately briefing the small group of bipartisan congressional leaders involved in intelligence affairs known as the Gang of Eight. What resulted from the Hill was nothing—something that the Senate report euphemistically attributes to partisanship, but which one of its members attributes to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, in his additional statement on the report, criticized the Obama administration for restricting the summer 2016 briefings to the Gang of Eight, rather than the full congressional intelligence committees. But Wyden also criticized "the Republican refusal to publicly acknowledge Russian interference" as a substantial contribution to the failed 2016 response."I believe that warning the public about a foreign influence campaign should not depend on the support of both parties, particularly when one of the parties stands to gain politically from that campaign," Wyden said.Bureaucracy, fueled by the typical reluctance to expand intelligence access, inhibited much of the Obama administration's response. It inhibited options for a response, the Senate report found. White House officials, including Rice, were concerned that a more assertive public response could prompt the Russians to escalate by manipulating the actual election infrastructure that the federal government does not control. Additionally, administration officials were highly concerned that the intelligence agencies achieve maximum confidence in their assessment of Russian intrusion before making any statement that they might have to recant. Not until October, a month before the election, did Clapper and the Department of Homeland Security publicly accuse Russia of election interference. Intel Chairman Adam Schiff Fans: Focus on Russia, Not 2020The previous month, then FBI Director James Comey, whose own high-profile interference in the election was another fateful move, wanted to write an op-ed about the Russian intrusion. But according to then-deputy Andrew McCabe, who would soon be in Trump's crosshairs, "[b]y the time he kind of got around to thinking about it seriously, he felt like the opportunity had passed and we were too close [to the election] at that point to have the intended effect on the electorate."There were other self-imposed "restrictions," in the Senate report's phrase. Among them, as has been widely reported, was the "highly politicized environment" that made the Obama team fear that their public warnings would themselves "undermine public confidence in the election"—by fueling Donald Trump's frequent insistence that any loss he might suffer was the result of a rigged system. The Obama team, according to the Senate report, considered itself effectively checkmated, unable to come up with a compelling response and reluctant to risk making itself a spectacle distracting from Hillary Clinton's campaign. Their response was to attempt to act in a nonpartisan manner in an information environment where such a posture was less and less viable. They didn't try to get new Russia sanctions through a GOP-controlled Congress in 2016 out of fear of Republicans crying foul; they would only impose unilateral sanctions after Trump won the election. The White House chief of staff at the time, Denis McDonough, told the Senate inquiry that the National Security Council "went out of [its] way to ensure that there was not a partisan veneer to any of the work." Once out of office, McDonough assailed McConnell for not operating similarly. McDonough, Rice, and Homeland Security chief Lisa Monaco worried that an increased public warning would amount to "doing the Russians' dirty work for them." Monaco told the committee that McConnell reacted to a September briefing by the intelligence agencies on the election intrusion by stating "[y]ou security people should be careful that you're not getting used." The report says Monaco interpreted that "as suggestive that the intelligence regarding Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 elections was being inflated or used for partisan ends." Only Democrats Sen. Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Rep. Adam Schiff (CA), members of the Gang of Eight, would warn publicly of the Russian election incursion that fall.In other words, while Russia may have hacked the election, Trump and GOP congressional leadership hacked the Obama administration's brains. The committee released its report on Thursday, the day after the Senate acquitted Trump for attempting to coerce Ukraine into aiding his 2020 reelection. A Senate Intelligence Committee official said the committee leadership, which at the end of last week had not received the intelligence agencies' proposed redactions despite delivering it to them months ago, opted to wait for release until after impeachment was finished. "The volume was going through the normal interagency review process and it was released when that process was completed," said a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.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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| Ill Cali cartel drug kingpin seeks early prison release Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:10 AM PST ![Ill Cali cartel drug kingpin seeks early prison release]( "Ill Cali cartel drug kingpin seeks early prison release") One of the world's major cocaine kingpins, a co-founder of Colombia's Cali Cartel that smuggled some $2 billion in drugs to the U.S., is seeking compassionate early release from a federal prison because of ill health. Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela, 81, is asking a Miami federal judge to let him return to his family in Colombia because he suffers from prostate and colon cancer. Rodriguez-Orejuela has served about half of his 30-year prison sentence under a 2006 plea deal.
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| China's Secrecy Over the Wuhan Coronavirus Is One Big Mistake Posted: 06 Feb 2020 01:00 AM PST  Misinformation is a dangerous thing.
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| 'I don't want to listen to lies about the Second Amendment': Father of Parkland shooting victim detained for State of the Union protest speaks out Posted: 05 Feb 2020 08:15 AM PST  The father of a student killed in the Parkland shooting is speaking out after being removed from the State of the Union address last night for shouting at President Donald Trump over "lies about the Second Amendment."Fred Guttenberg's 14-year-old daughter Jamie was killed in February 2018 during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Since her death, Mr Guttenberg has been an outspoken advocate for gun safety.
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| ‘Enough is Enough’: DNC Chair Calls on Iowa Dems to ‘Immediately Begin a Recanvass’ Due to Botched Vote Count Posted: 06 Feb 2020 09:45 AM PST  Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez on Thursday called on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately "recanvass" the results after problems emerged in the results-reporting process."Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass," Perez wrote on Twitter."A recanvass is a review of the worksheets from each caucus site to ensure accuracy," Perez continued. "The [Iowa Democratic Party] will continue to report results."The recanvass will likely involve a "hand audit" of precinct results to "ensure that they were tallied and reported correctly by a telephone intake sheets and caucus reporting application correctly," according to Iowa Democratic Party rules.On Thursday the New York Times reported it found certain discrepancies in the results of the caucus. The paper found over 100 voting precincts for which the results contained errors or inconsistencies that should have been impossible according to the Iowa caucus's rules. Iowa has 1,681 precincts in total.The paper did not see any evidence that the inconsistencies were the result of bias toward a particular candidate.Publication of the final results of the Iowa Caucus was severely delayed after the Iowa Democrats' app for reporting results experienced systemic failures. As of Thursday afternoon 97 percent of the results had been reported, showing a virtual tie between South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.).
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| Polls show Biden’s campaign could be doomed Posted: 06 Feb 2020 01:39 PM PST  New polls reveal the state of Joe Biden's campaign is far shakier than his longtime lead in the national polls would suggest. In fact, it may have already entered the terminal stage.
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| Siberian street cats limp to new life with prosthetic paws Posted: 06 Feb 2020 09:12 AM PST  Ryzhik, a scruffy red tabby cat, was found on the streets of the Siberian city of Tomsk in the blistering cold, his four paws completely frozen. Two years later Ryzhik leads a normal life at Gorshkov's clinic, hobbling around on four prosthetic limbs. Ryzhik is one of the first cats in the world to have four titanium paws that were implanted into their bones using the technique, according to Gorshkov.
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| A plane had to turn around and fly 1,000 miles back home because a man on board claimed to have caught the Wuhan coronavirus Posted: 05 Feb 2020 09:10 AM PST  James Potok, 28, announced mid-flight on Monday that he had contracted the deadly virus. A medical team determined he had made it up.
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| Scientists have discovered an unusual 'monster' galaxy from the early universe Posted: 06 Feb 2020 10:57 AM PST  Scientists have discovered an unusual "monster" galaxy that existed about 12 billion years ago. But why it suddenly stopped forming stars is unknown.
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| Israeli strikes kill 23 Syrian, foreign fighters in Syria Posted: 06 Feb 2020 07:40 AM PST  Israeli air strikes killed 23 Syrian and foreign fighters in Syria Thursday, a monitor said, the latest in a spate of raids Israel has said targeted an Iranian presence on its doorstep. Israel has pledged to prevent its main enemy from entrenching itself militarily in Syria, where it is backing President Bashar al-Assad's government alongside Russia and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The pre-dawn raids killed three Iranians and seven Tehran-backed foreign fighters near Kisweh south of the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
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| A California surgeon and his girlfriend were accused of drugging and raping up to 1,000 women. A new DA says the evidence against them was 'manufactured.' Posted: 06 Feb 2020 07:14 AM PST  The county's new district attorney said his predecessor made up the evidence for political gain.
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| Meet the JH-XX: China's Newest and Fastest Stealth Bomber? Posted: 06 Feb 2020 09:12 AM PST  Is it real?
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| U.S. moves ahead on development plans for Utah monuments Trump shrank Posted: 06 Feb 2020 12:12 PM PST  The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proceeded with the plans despite pending litigation challenging the 2017 proclamation by Trump that slashed the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. BLM officials told reporters in a call that the land use plans for the Grand Staircase-Esclalante monument, as well as 860,000 acres (348,030 hectares) that were excluded from the monument by Trump, were necessary because the existing plan had not been updated in 20 years and that the number of visitors to the area had exploded in that time.
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| Gabbard Campaign to Protest CNN Townhall over New Hampshire Snub Posted: 06 Feb 2020 09:12 AM PST  Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) is scheduling a protest outside the New Hampshire venue where CNN is hosting town halls ahead of the state's primary next week, after Gabbard was excluded from the two-night lineup — despite out-polling townhall guests Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer, and Deval Patrick in New Hampshire."This attempt to silence Tulsi is bigger than one person — it's our right as voters to hear from ALL the candidates, and to have our voices represented. No institution should be allowed to get away with censoring democracy: That's why we're standing up to CNN on Wednesday, February 5th, demanding that our voices be heard," the Gabbard campaign told Fox News.Gabbard told the network last week that she had reached out about being excluded, but had not received a response."We have reached out, I think, more than once, and we received no explanation. I don't even think we've gotten a response to date about why they're excluding the first female combat veteran ever to run for president, the only woman of color in the race," she said.Gabbard currently sits sixth in New Hampshire polling at 4.7 percent, while Yang polls at 3.7 percent, and Tom Steyer at 3.1 percent, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average.Patrick, who does not even register in the average, hit 0.4 percent in the most recent Boston Globe/Suffolk University New Hampshire poll.Gabbard has voiced public criticism over CNN's treatment of her campaign, and slammed the news network during the October debate after a CNN analyst called her a Russian asset."The New York Times and CNN have also smeared veterans like myself for calling to an end to this regime-change war," Gabbard told the crowd in Ohio. " . . . This morning a CNN commentator said on national television that I'm an asset of Russia. Completely despicable."
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| President upsets Mexicans with plan to end long weekends Posted: 05 Feb 2020 11:01 AM PST  Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has floated a strikingly unpopular proposal to end the practice of creating long weekends by moving national holidays around. López Obrador is a student of Mexican history, and he was irked because few people appeared to remember that Wednesday is the anniversary of the Feb. 5, 1917 adoption of the country's Constitution. López Obrador said it is a bad practice because it leads people to forget what they were celebrating, even though he acknowledged the three-day weekends were popular.
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| U.S. citizen dies in border patrol custody Posted: 05 Feb 2020 11:03 AM PST  A U.S. citizen has died in government custody, Customs and Border Patrol announced Wednesday.Border patrol agents arrested the 32-year-old man Tuesday afternoon "after he was identified as a suspect in an alien smuggling incident," BuzzFeed News reports via a CBP statement. "At around 6:00 p.m., during processing at the Brackettville Station, the man began exhibiting signs of distress," the statement continued. "EMT-certified agents" began tending to the man, and an ambulance took him to a local hospital around 6:40 p.m. "He was pronounced deceased by medical personnel at 9:37 p.m. CST," per the statement.The agents who arrested the man were assigned to a Brackettville, Texas, station, which is near the Del Rio, Texas, port of entry.More stories from theweek.com How Trump's New York trusted traveler ban will punish the most conservative parts of the state How history will view Trump's impeachment Fox News' Brian Kilmeade is really mad that Romney would 'bring religion' into his impeachment decision
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| Joe Biden moves town-hall audience to tears as he opens up about how he dealt with his stutter Posted: 05 Feb 2020 10:17 PM PST  The former vice president and 2020 hopeful emphasized the importance of empathy and asked people to "to reach out a little more for people."
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| Storage unit found, eldest son speaks out: What we know about the missing Idaho kids Posted: 06 Feb 2020 11:10 AM PST  Details continue to trickle out in the case of the two missing Idaho children as mother Lori Vallow missed court deadline a week ago.
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| Bernie Sanders declares 'decisive victory' in Iowa caucuses, rips results reporting 'screw-up' Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:14 PM PST  "We are holding a press conference that should have occurred three nights ago in Des Moines, but for the inability of the Iowa Democratic Party to count votes in a timely fashion," Sanders said.
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| Man Who Killed Son for Insurance Money Is Convicted of Doing the Same to Wife Posted: 05 Feb 2020 12:30 PM PST  A man who killed his son in 2008 to collect $700,000 from his life insurance policy was convicted this week of killing his wife nearly 30 years ago for the same reason.Karl Holger Karlsen, 59, pleaded guilty in 2013 to murdering his son, Levi Karlsen, in Seneca Falls, New York, and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. That conviction raised suspicions with detectives in California, where the investigation into his wife's death had been continuing, according to court documents.Karlsen's wife, Christina Karlsen, 30, died on New Year's Day in 1991, when she was trapped by a fire in a boarded-up bathroom of the family's home in Calaveras County, Karlsen's lawyer, Richard Esquivel, said.Days after his wife's death, Karlsen collected $215,000 from his wife's insurance policy, and he and his children moved to Seneca Falls, where he is from, Esquivel said.On Monday, a jury convicted Karlsen of murdering his wife by committing arson -- purposefully boarding up the bathroom and lighting a fire in a hallway to kill her.He could face a maximum life sentence without the possibility of parole during his sentencing hearing March 17. He plans to appeal the conviction, Esquivel said.The victim's mother, Arlene Meltzer, 78, was in the courtroom when the verdict was read by the jury."I just knew that he had something to do with it," she said Tuesday. "It is something a mother always carries in their heart."With the money from his wife's life insurance policy, Karlsen moved back to New York, bought a house and paid several bills, Esquivel said.According to court documents, Karlsen's son, Levi Karlsen, bought a $700,000 life insurance policy in 2008. Soon after that, Levi Karlsen, 23, signed paperwork that named his father the sole beneficiary of his policy in the event of his death, records show; his father was present at the time of signing.Hours after signing the paperwork, Levi Karlsen's body was found by his father's second wife, Cindy Karlsen, under a truck that had fallen on him in his father's garage, records show.Initially, authorities deemed the death an accident. But in 2011, when Cindy Karlsen realized that her husband had invested money from his son's policy into a $1.2 million life insurance policy for her, she alerted authorities, according to court documents.She cooperated with authorities, and while she was wearing a wire, her husband admitted that he had deliberately caused the truck to fall on his son, according to court documents. In 2012, Karlsen was charged with murdering his son, and he pleaded guilty the following year."We suspected that he was guilty of Levi's death as well," Meltzer said. "I expected that he was involved in it in some way."Karlsen appealed his conviction in that case and lost, but he planned to appeal again, Esquivel said.Meltzer, meanwhile, is done waiting."For 30 years we stood and waited. Right now I am just taking quiet time to help me get strong," Meltzer said as her voice quivered. "I just kept my prayers going because I knew that he was involved, but I just had to stand by and believe that God was going to take care of it."It has finally come to an end," she said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Top U.S. officials to spotlight Chinese spy operations, pursuit of American secrets Posted: 06 Feb 2020 03:00 AM PST ![Top U.S. officials to spotlight Chinese spy operations, pursuit of American secrets]( "Top U.S. officials to spotlight Chinese spy operations, pursuit of American secrets") An aggressive campaign by American authorities to root out Chinese espionage operations in the United States has snared a growing group of Chinese government officials, business people, and academics pursuing American secrets. In 2019 alone, public records show U.S. authorities arrested and expelled two Chinese diplomats who allegedly drove onto a military base in Virginia. On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr, FBI director Christopher Wray and U.S. counterintelligence chief William Evanina will address a Washington conference on U.S. efforts to counter Chinese "economic malfeasance" involving espionage and the theft of U.S. technological and scientific secrets.
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| Trump Ties Impeachment to Russiagate, Claims He May Have Been Removed If He ‘Hadn’t Fired James Comey’ Posted: 06 Feb 2020 10:37 AM PST  President Trump began his Thursday remarks on his impeachment acquittal by criticizing the "dirty cops" and "bad people" who investigated his 2016 campaign for alleged Russian collusion, and claimed he would have been already removed from office if he had not removed former FBI director James Comey."A tremendous thing was done over the last couple of months, but really if you go back to it, over the last number of years — we had the witch hunt, that started from the day we came down the elevator, myself and our future first lady," Trump declaredThe president then explained how impeachment was a continuation of the same attempt, saying "it never really stopped.""We've been going through this now for over three years," Trump stated. "It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops. It was leakers, and liars, and it should never ever happen to another president ever."Trump also insinuated that Comey had been directly involved in attempting to remove him. Reports broke last month that Comey was being investigated by the Department of Justice for possible leaks of classified information."It was a disgrace — had I not fired James Comey, who was a disaster, by the way — it's possible I wouldn't even be standing here right now," Trump claimed. "We caught them in the act, dirty cops, bad people. If this happened to President Obama, lot of people would've been in jail for a long time already — many, many years."Comey has attempted to distance himself from a December report drafted by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, which detailed how the FBI made "at least 17 significant errors or omissions" in its FISA application to surveil Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page.Horowitz explained how "FBI officials at every level" — including Comey and former deputy director Andrew McCabe — presented Christopher Steele's dossier as a reliable source to the FISA court, despite concerns from CIA officials, who "believed that the Steele election reporting was not completely vetted" and viewed the dossier as a "internet rumor."Comey said in an interview after the Horowitz report that the errors amounted to "sloppiness" and that he "didn't know the particulars of the investigation," but attorney general William Barr disagreed, saying such a claim was "simply not true.""One of the problems with what happened was precisely that they pulled the investigation up to the executive floors, and it was run and birddogged by a very small group of very high-level officials," Barr said. "The idea that this was seven layers below him is simply not true."
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| Why the World Should Really Fear North Korea's Tunnels Posted: 06 Feb 2020 03:30 AM PST  Tunnels, yes, you read that right.
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| The Kremlin is checking the temperatures of Putin's media visitors amid coronavirus fears Posted: 06 Feb 2020 10:09 AM PST  "These are just precautionary measures," a Kremlin spokesman told Russian media after the press pool had their temperatures checked.
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| Mexican farmers take over dams to stop water payments to US Posted: 05 Feb 2020 11:08 AM PST ![Mexican farmers take over dams to stop water payments to US]( "Mexican farmers take over dams to stop water payments to US") A dispute over water payments to the United States widened in Mexico Wednesday, after President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador said Mexico has to pay its debts but angry farmers pushed back National Guard troops guarding a dam. Under a 1944 treaty, Mexico and the United States are supposed to allow cross-border flows of water to each other, but Mexico has fallen badly behind and now has to quickly catch up on payments.
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| California lawmaker introduces bill making voting mandatory Posted: 05 Feb 2020 10:37 PM PST  If a California lawmaker has his way, registered voters in the state will be required to participate in every election.On Tuesday, Assemblyman Marc Levine (D) introduced Assembly Bill 2070, making voting mandatory. "Democracy is not a spectator sport — it requires the active participation of all its citizens," Levine said in a statement. "California is a national leader on expanding voting rights to its citizens. Those rights come with a responsibility by registered voters to cast their ballot and make sure that their voice is heard by their government."Under the measure, which isn't expected to be considered until the spring, the secretary of state would determine the penalty for not voting. This is an unprecedented bill, and should it go into law, it would likely be challenged in court, the Los Angeles Times says. California's latest statewide report on elections found that there are more than 20.3 million registered voters in the state, with nearly two million more eligible to vote, but not registered. In recent years, voters have been coming out to the polls in higher numbers, with 64.5 percent of California's registered voters participating in the November 2018 election. This year, the state's primary was moved up to March 3, in order to encourage even more people to vote.More stories from theweek.com The real State of the Union The White House is asking Republicans to bash Mitt Romney. Liz Cheney is defending him. How history will view Trump's impeachment
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| Wichita woman convicted of beheading ex-boyfriend's mother Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:25 PM PST  Prosecutors said Rachael Hilyard cut off the head of 63-year-old Micki Davis using two steak knives on April 9, 2017. Davis had gone to Hilyard's home with her 9-year-old grandson to collect her son's belongings, at Hilyard's insistence. Hilyard's lawyer acknowledged his client killed Davis but said it was not premeditated, which is required for a first-degree murder conviction, The Wichita Eagle reported.
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| Xi says China has achieved 'positive' virus control results Posted: 06 Feb 2020 06:01 AM PST  China has achieved "positive" results in its prevention and control efforts in fighting the new coronavirus, President Xi Jinping told Saudi Arabia's King Salman by telephone, China's official Xinhua news agency reported. The two discussed "efforts to combat and control the novel coronavirus epidemic", the report said. China has declared a "people's war" on the virus and the whole nation is working as one to combat it, Xi said.
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| US warns Venezuela of consequences if Guaido harmed Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:08 PM PST  The United States on Thursday warned Venezuela's leftist regime of consequences if opposition leader Juan Guaido is not allowed to return safely from a visit to Washington. "We hope that the regime makes the calculation, particularly after this trip, that the support for Guaido is strong and that the counter-reaction to any move against him would make it a mistake for the regime," said Elliott Abrams, the US pointman on Venezuela. Guaido, who is considered interim president by the United States and most other Western and Latin American nations, paid a surprise visit as a guest Tuesday at President Donald Trump's State of the Union address to Congress.
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| Tourism Industry Pleads Mexico’s AMLO: Please Don’t Cancel Long Weekends Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:20 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's what Mexico's tourism industry is telling President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador after he proposed canceling long weekends.AMLO, as the president is known, wants holidays to be celebrated on the actual day that they happened to boost their historical significance. For many years now, Mexico has moved holidays that fall in the middle of the week to either Monday or Friday so people can enjoy a long weekend.Getting rid of these would hurt the economy and the tourism industry, said the head of tourism chamber Concanaco Servytur, Jose Manuel Lopez, in a statement. Long weekends are when people are able to travel to nearby, domestic spots, he said, and it's when transportation services, restaurants and hotels register significant increases in cash flows."We're doing a lot of things that are helping tourism grow," Lopez Obrador said in his morning press conference on Thursday. "We're cleaning beaches, we're building the Maya Train and working to increase road security. So this won't impact tourism. On the contrary, we'll be affected if we forget our past."Concanaco's Lopez said long weekends also allow workers to relieve some stress and come back to work recharged. Mexico only has seven official holidays per year, one of the fewest in the world.The Finance Ministry is going to review the president's initiative to analyze its possible impact on the industry, Deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Yorio told media on Thursday. "We'd have to see how it would be implemented, but we'll analyze it."(Updates with comments by Deputy Finance Minister in sixth paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Andrea Navarro in Mexico City at anavarro30@bloomberg.net;Lorena Rios in Mexico City at lriost@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Case at bcase4@bloomberg.net, Nacha CattanFor 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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| U.S. cities and states with confirmed coronavirus cases Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:01 AM PST  Six states are currently treating people infected with coronavirus.
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| Chinese officials are only letting people leave their homes every 2 days and have forbidden weddings and funerals Posted: 06 Feb 2020 02:19 PM PST  In four cities that are home to more than 30 million people, each household is given a so-called passport. It permits one person to leave every two days.
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| Russia Is Building Radar To Detect Hypersonic Weapons (And Is Testing Them Too) Posted: 06 Feb 2020 10:57 AM PST  Moscow is looking to make money by selling this technology.
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| AG Barr Requires FBI to Obtain His Approval Before Investigating 2020 Candidates Posted: 06 Feb 2020 05:26 AM PST  Attorney General William Barr has issued a memo requiring the FBI to obtain approval from Barr himself before conducting any investigation into any 2020 presidential election candidate."In certain cases, the existence of a federal criminal or counterintelligence investigation, if it becomes known to the public, may have unintended effects on our elections," Barr wrote in the memo, which was obtained by the New York Times. The attorney general went on to emphasize that "we also must be sensitive to safeguarding the department's reputation for fairness, neutrality and nonpartisanship."The memo establishes certain requirements for the FBI and other agencies under the purview of the Justice Department to meet before opening a "politically sensitive" criminal or counterintelligence investigation against candidates or donors. Barr must personally give approval for investigations into presidential and vice presidential candidates, as well as their respective senior staffs.The move follows Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on the FBI's obtainment of a FISA warrant against former Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page as part of the agency's investigation into suspected collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian agents. The report detailed various errors and material omissions in the FBI's initial application for a FISA warrant and subsequent renewals."We identified multiple instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA application were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed," the report read.The FBI in 2016 carried out investigations pertaining to both presidential candidates. While the Trump campaign was investigated for possible connections to Russia, a claim that the Mueller Report subsequently found to be based on insufficient evidence, the bureau in October 2016 also reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for classified messages.
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| Cruise ship that visited Hong Kong searches for a port after Philippines, Japan deny entry Posted: 06 Feb 2020 01:13 PM PST  Holland America confirmed that MS Westerdam is being denied entry to Japan despite there being no known cases of coronavirus aboard.
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| Authorities: Man shot in face during immigration operation Posted: 06 Feb 2020 08:20 AM PST |
| Trump’s Press Secretary Whines About Media Lunch Leaks—in New Leaked Email Posted: 06 Feb 2020 07:53 AM PST  The Trump White House is apparently still reeling because the president didn't get anything to eat at the soup-and-sole lunch he hosted for television personalities before Tuesday's State of the Union address."[T]he president of the United States welcomed you to the White House and spent almost two hours answering so many questions that he didn't eat his own lunch," White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham complained about President Donald Trump's personal sacrifice in a confidential email to the attendees—an email that was shared with The Daily Beast on Thursday morning. "He graciously gave you a couple of items on the record and then spoke frankly, honestly, and most importantly in good faith that it was off the record."Grisham, who doesn't follow the practice of delivering White House press briefings, thus obliterating a decades-long tradition by administrations of both parties, continued: "Our only agenda was to give you an idea of what the president was going to say to the country in his third State of the Union address. It was so disappointing that not even an hour passed before we were inundated with inquiries, as someone or perhaps a few in the group chose to leak out most of what was said. What's worse, some of the details were things the president specifically asked you not to share."It seems Grisham and her boss, who banned CNN from the meal, were especially angered by The Daily Beast's report about the lunch—published hours before Trump's speech to Congress—that contained many such details, such as the president's criticisms of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his vow to block publication of former National Security Adviser John Bolton's tell-all book."To me, it is the height of hypocrisy that a press who bemoans the perceived lack of ethical behavior in this administration, so brazenly violates its own ethical standards," Grisham went on, clearly warming to her subject. "The media cries for more access but cannot adhere to a simple agreed upon standard of off-the-record, which allowed your colleagues who were not in attendance to break the news for you." Delivering a helpful lecture on journalistic ethics, Grisham added: "Call me naïve, but it is my belief that old-fashioned accountability should be applied to a press corps that has sadly failed to hold itself to its very own standards. Accountability is, after all, one of the five core principles of journalism. 'We hold the powerful accountable' is a mantra that many in the press righteously shout from every news desk in this county. I ask—who holds all of you accountable?"And so on and so forth, for several paragraphs more."In closing," Grisham wrote, "I must say that for once I wouldn't mind if this email leaked, but somehow I doubt anyone will want to admit to this complete lapse in integrity."Oh ye of little faith.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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| Donald Trump survived impeachment. Will American democracy? Posted: 05 Feb 2020 01:16 PM PST  The verdict is in. President Trump has been acquitted of the Articles of Impeachment stemming from the Ukraine scandal. Notice I do not say that he has been "found innocent." That would be a lie.It will take a while to sort through the fallout from this impeachment process. The verdict was seemingly inevitable — the Republican-controlled Senate was never going to vote to oust Trump — but the conclusion is still disappointing. It seems possible that American democracy has taken a dark turn from which it cannot recover.One conclusion is possible to reach, though. The Founders failed us.They gave us the Electoral College, which was designed to keep demagogues and rapscallions out of the Oval Office. Instead, it ensured Trump's election. They gave us impeachment, which was designed to oust leaders who had abused their power. Instead, we ended up with a 67-vote standard that can probably never be met. They promised us checks and balances. We now have a president as unfettered, as free from accountability, as any in history.I don't want to hear any more about the wisdom of the Founders. They created a government that cannot rid the body politic of a poison like Trump. They promised their design accounted for the fact that human beings are not angels. "You must first enable the government to control the governed," James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, "and the next place, oblige it to control itself." Those controls, if they ever existed, are now officially worthless. President Trump is not a man to accept restraints on his power, nor to be chastened by a not-so-near miss. (Senator Susan Collins' (R-Maine) assertion that Trump had learned a "big lesson" was absurd, and immediately disproved by the president.) Acquittal means he is now free to use the power of the United States government to undermine his rivals and, perhaps, to ensure his re-election to the Oval Office. Can anybody doubt he will seize such opportunities when and if they present themselves?All it takes to undermine democracy, it turns out, is one man audacious enough to step across the lines — legal and otherwise — with no apparent sense of shame or public virtue. The Constitution, it turns out, was a house of cards the whole time. In retrospect, it is amazing that it lasted as long as it has.Can it be said to be functional any longer? The Constitution gives Congress the power to make war; this president — and presidents of both parties before him, admittedly — has reserved that power for himself, shrugging off legislative prerogatives to attack Iran. The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse; this president ignores that rule in order to fund a wall on the Southern border, and to pressure foreign countries to investigate his rivals. The presidential oath of office requires the White House occupant to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution; it is not at all clear that Trump understands what the document entails.It is true that Trump has not gone to the excesses of Abraham Lincoln, who suspended habeas corpus, nor FDR, who put Japanese-Americans in prison camps. But it is also true that we have not seen Trump observe restraint when he believes disregarding constitutional niceties suits him. There is no reason to believe that the situation will improve in the post-impeachment era.Our Constitution is battered, our democracy injured. What makes Trump's acquittal even more galling, though, is that Republican senators have decided to add insult to that injury."Ultimately, voters themselves can hold the president accountable in an election, including the one just nine months from now," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote in explaining his vote."The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did," added Sen Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). "I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday."What rot.Let's do the math here. President Trump tried to use his official power to undermine a rival — Joe Biden — and thus cheat his way to re-election this year. Yet Republicans like Rubio and Alexander suggest the election is the best way to hold Trump accountable. That's like giving John Dillinger a job as a security guard at the local bank and hoping for the best. Given the GOP's anti-voter efforts of the last decade, that may well be by design.And yet, in this moment, there is one small reason to have hope. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) voted to convict the president. He did so knowing he will take tremendous abuse from the president and from most of the party he led as recently as 2012. Democrats will not be able to rebuild this country's institutions on their own; at some point, they will have to be joined by conservatives of conscience. That will take time, however, if it happens at all. If we have learned anything during the Trump administration, it is that you cannot be too pessimistic about what is likely to happen next. The attempt to impeach President Trump is now finished. The question remains: Did American democracy die today, too?Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com The real State of the Union How history will view Trump's impeachment Mitt Romney just showed Trump how a president should act
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| 'Grey death': Louisiana police say powerful opiod can kill on contact Posted: 05 Feb 2020 01:54 PM PST  Police in Louisiana have issued a warning over 'grey death' - a powerful drug combination that can reportedly cause severe illness and even death through skin contact alone.David Spencer, a spokesperson for St Mary Parish Sheriff's Office near New Orleans, said: "The public recognises a lot of the drugs that we deal with. This is a new one."
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| Outrage after Limbaugh given Medal of Freedom Posted: 06 Feb 2020 04:50 AM PST  President Trump has been roundly condemned by critics for giving the controversial conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh one of the highest civilian awards in the country in the middle of his State of the Union address.
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