| 'Sanctuary' battle heats up as Trump kicks New Yorkers from program for expedited entry Posted: 10 Feb 2020 05:33 PM PST  The Trump administration's war on so-called sanctuary cities and states is being taken to a new level, with a court battle looming in New York over a rule that may keep hundreds of thousands of residents from enrolling in a program meant to speed reentry in the country from abroad.
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| US prosecutors ask for 7-9 years jail for Trump confidant Stone Posted: 10 Feb 2020 11:33 PM PST  US prosecutors have asked a judge to sentence President Donald Trump's longtime aide Roger Stone to between seven and nine years in jail for lying to Congress and witness tampering. Stone was found guilty in November on charges related to his efforts to spare the president embarrassment over the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. "When his crimes were revealed... he displayed contempt for this court and the rule of law," prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum filed Monday.
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| North Korea’s Secret Coronavirus Crisis is Crazy Scary Posted: 10 Feb 2020 12:41 AM PST  SEOUL–North Korea's not saying a word about deaths or illnesses from the coronavirus, but the disease reportedly has spread across the border from China and is taking a toll in a country with a dismal health care system and scant resources for fighting off the deadly bug.From Lobsters and Steak to Coronavirus: One Couple's Surreal Cruise NightmareOne sure sign of the regime's fears is that it failed to stage a parade in central Pyongyang on Saturday, the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the country's armed forces. Last year, Kim Jong Un himself presided over the procession that displayed the North's latest missiles and other fearsome hardware along with goose-stepping soldiers in serried ranks.This year, nothing about the nation's nuclear warheads, much less the "new strategic weapon" that Kim has vowed to unveil. Rodong Sinmum, the newspaper of the ruling Workers' Party, merely cited the armed forces' supposed success combating "severe and dangerous difficulties"—and said nothing at all about the parade.But reports have filtered out about Kim's subjects falling prey to coronavirus despite the country's decision to seal its 880-mile border with China, most of it along the Yalu River into the Yellow Sea to the west, and its 11-mile border with Russia where the Tumen River flows into the Pacific.Among the first to report fatalities in North Korea, the Seoul-based website Daily NK said five people had died in the critical northwestern city of Sinuiju, on the Yalu River across road and rail bridges from Dandong, which is the largest Chinese city in the region and a key point for commerce with North Korea despite sanctions.Daily NK, which relies on sources inside North Korea that send reports via Chinese mobile phone networks to contacts in China, said authorities had "ordered public health officials in Sinuiju to quickly dispose of the bodies and keep the deaths secret from the public."The victims had crossed the porous Yalu River border despite orders to cut off traffic from China as the disease radiated from the industrial city of Wuhan where the virus originated in December. As of Sunday, more than 700 people had died inside China.One of the first patients in North Korea reportedly was hospitalized in Sinuiju "with symptoms similar to a cold and was given fever reducers and antibiotics," said Daily NK, but the patient died as the fever rose. Two more patients died two days later in another hospital in Sinuiju and another two in a nearby town.North Korea's worries about an epidemic are all the more intense because of its shortage of basic medicine and equipment. As cases mount, authorities are working feverishly to contain a disease that, if unchecked, could undermine Kim's grip over his 25 million people, most of whom live in poverty worsened by hunger."Because health conditions and health care in North Korea are so bad," said Bruce Bennett, long-time analyst at the Rand Corporation, "they cannot allow the replication process to develop without severe intervention"—that is, they have to take drastic steps to keep the virus from spreading fast.The country has just streamlined a headquarters to coordinate operations, Rodong Sinmun reported, marshaling 30,000 workers to combat the epidemic.The Coronavirus Whistleblower Died a Martyr for Free Speech in ChinaBesides blocking international traffic, the North's Korean Central News Agency reported the headquarters had ordered tests for everyone entering the capital city of Pyongyang by road and for anyone who had traveled outside the country. Foreigners working in Pyongyang, including those with diplomatic missions or non-governmental organizations, were banned temporarily from venturing outside for shopping. Even so, with hospitals and clinics largely bereft of needed supplies other than those serving the elite in the capital and elsewhere, a certain desperation was evident in the state media. Rodong Sinmun warned that "the fate" of the country was at stake, according to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency."North Korea lacks a vaccine or medical abilities," said Bennett,"so they have to act by preventing the disease from coming into North Korea." The point is to "rapidly contain any leakage—exactly what they are trying to do by preventing people-to-people contacts."That's virtually impossible, however, as long as people move illicitly across the border, carrying on low-level commerce in the need to survive a decrepit system. JoongAng Ilbo, a leading South Korean newspaper, cited anonymous source saying that a woman had been diagnosed in the capital and that all those with whom she had had contact had been quarantined.Unlike in China, North Korea officially has denied any cases while attempting to get people to cooperate in stopping the spread of the disease. JoongAng Ilbo quoted a North Korean health official, Song In Bom, as having called on North Korean TV for "civil awareness" and unity in dealing with the disease while assuring his audience there had so far been no cases."I believe absolutely nothing of what I'm hearing from Pyongyang," said Evans Revere, a former senior U.S. diplomat who specializes in North Korean issues."It simply defies credibility that a country with a grossly inadequate public health infrastructure and a malnourished population, a country that depends on China for some 90 percent of its trade, and a country that had until recently opened itself up to a major influx of Chinese tourists in order to earn foreign exchange has avoided having a lot of victims," said Revere. "The total closure of the border and other measures Pyongyang has taken reflect a real sense of emergency in the North about the threat."In fact, he went on, "I can't help but think it may also reflect panic if the number of patients is growing."Indeed, "the coronavirus arguably poses a unique threat to North Korea," wrote Victor Cha and Marie DuMond of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington in an article in Beyond Parallel, which is published by CSIS."The regime's relative isolation from the international community hinders the widespread penetration of many diseases from abroad," they wrote, but "the porous nature of the border with China and frequent travel is a clear vector for the virus' transmission." Thus, "If there are reports of the virus inside of North Korea, we should expect that the virus would spread rapidly given the state's inability to contain a pandemic."By now, it may be too late for North Korea to stamp out all signs of the disease."Several suspected coronavirus infections have occurred in North Korea even though it shut all its borders," said Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's biggest-selling newspaper, citing anonymous sources. "The infections most likely spread through porous parts of the border with China that see plenty of smuggling and other clandestine traffic," said the paper, reporting suspected cases among those "engaged in smuggling between the North and China." "Bottom line," said Steve Tharp, who's been analyzing North Korean affairs as both an army officer and civilian expert for many years here, "the coronavirus has tightened up sanctions enforcement more than any other measure over the years because the North Koreans are actually self-enforcing the sanctions, against their will, through the tight closing of their borders in order to save the regime from being wiped out by this human pandemic coming."North Korean leaders, said Tharp, "understand very well that this pandemic would rip through their population and be much more dangerous in North Korea than other places because of their inadequate medical infrastructure and the low resistance disease of the general population after so many years of surviving under near-starvation conditions."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Families of Thai shooting victims wait for answers, bodies Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:34 AM PST  Sirirat Nualraksa blinked back tears as the ambulances delivered gurneys bearing cloth-shrouded bodies to the morgue of a public hospital after a vengeful Thai soldier killed 29 people and wounded dozens of others in a shopping mall rampage. On Facebook, she had talked with her sister, 33-year-old Papatchaya Nualraksa, as she hid with her husband and their 2-year-old in a supermarket storage room. In a Facebook call, Papatchaya told her sister that she was scared.
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| EU Won’t Budge on Open Borders, Switzerland’s Government Warns Posted: 11 Feb 2020 05:49 AM PST |
| Central Americans sent to Mexico by U.S. increasingly victims of kidnappings: aid group Posted: 11 Feb 2020 09:06 AM PST  Central Americans asylum seekers sent to Mexico by the United States to await their U.S. court dates increasingly become the victims of kidnappings and other types of violence, aid group Doctors Without Borders said in a report published on Tuesday. In a bid to slash asylum claims, the administration of President Donald Trump launched an initiative in January 2019 that has forced more than 57,000 non-Mexican migrants to wait in Mexico for their U.S. immigration court hearings, under a program known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). MPP, sometimes called Remain in Mexico, is among various overlapping U.S. policies aimed at discouraging asylum seekers.
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| 'I was scared to death': Patients jailed over unpaid medical debt in rural Kansas Posted: 10 Feb 2020 11:42 AM PST  At a time when healthcare policy dominates national debate, a county in Kansas is jailing individuals with medical debt.Judge David Casement is a magistrate judge in Coffeyville, Kansas, where the poverty rate is twice the national average. He presides over cases in which individuals with medical debt are brought to court to face the medical companies they owe. During the hearings, the debtors must make a case for their own poverty during what is known as a "debtors exam."
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| Can Syria Survive Another Tragedy? Posted: 11 Feb 2020 04:11 AM PST  Syrian forces backed by their Russian and Iranian overlords are pounding Idlib Province in a desperate attempt to take this last remaining slice of Syria. In January.
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| NYPD protesters to mayor: Don't blame us for attacks on Bronx officers Posted: 10 Feb 2020 10:26 AM PST  Criminal justice activists in NYC lashed out at the mayor and police commissioner for linking weekend attacks on officers to recent protests.
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| China removes two Hubei leaders as virus crisis deepens Posted: 10 Feb 2020 09:06 PM PST  The two most senior health officials at the epicentre of China's deadly virus outbreak have been sacked, state media said Tuesday, as pressure mounts over the way local authorities have handled the epidemic. Zhang Jin, the Communist Party boss of the provincial health commission in Hubei, and its director Liu Yingzi have been removed from their positions, reported state broadcaster CCTV, after a decision by the province's party committee Monday. The area has found itself at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 1,000 people and infected over 42,000 across China since December.
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| Officials say more than 100 U.S. troops diagnosed with brain injuries from Iran attack Posted: 10 Feb 2020 10:24 AM PST  The U.S. military is preparing to report a more than 50 percent jump in the number of cases of traumatic brain injury stemming from Iran's missile attack on a base in Iraq last month, U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday.
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| Abducted 3-year-old found safe inside car on I-10 in Florida Posted: 10 Feb 2020 11:43 AM PST |
| Coronavirus Keeps Killing and Americans Keep Getting Infected Posted: 10 Feb 2020 11:04 AM PST  The 2019 novel coronavirus claimed more lives in China on Sunday than in any 24-hour period since the outbreak began late last year, and the danger to Americans seemed only to be increasing.Ninety-seven people died of the infection over that timespan in China, bringing the death toll in that country to 909, according to officials with the World Health Organization.A 60-year-old who died Thursday in the port city of Wuhan, where the disease originated in December, became the first U.S. citizen to succumb to the illness, the American embassy in Beijing announced Saturday. The number of patients killed by the virus has officially surpassed the toll—774—of those who died during a SARS epidemic, which also originated in China in 2002. Even so, the coronavirus death toll outside mainland China has held steady for some time at two, with one each in Hong Kong and the Philippines. In recent weeks, hundreds of Americans have been evacuated from China and placed in isolation on U.S. military bases for symptom-monitoring. The State Department has said dozens more are still waiting on help from the federal government in evacuating from Hubei province, where the rate of infection soared over the weekend, leaving experts fearing that the worst of the outbreak might be still to come. The WHO said 40,235 people had been infected in China as of Monday morning, but public health officials have repeatedly cautioned that these numbers are likely too low due to a severe strain on testing facilities.North Korea's Secret Coronavirus Crisis is Crazy ScaryIn his first public appearance in two weeks, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday said authorities have confidence they will triumph over the "grim" outbreak, which has demonstrated both "the strength and many shortcomings" of his nation's public health system, the South China Morning Post reported.While the number of people infected inside the United States has been steady at 12 since last week, 23 Americans have contracted the virus since the outbreak hit a now-quarantined cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan. A total of 135 people on board had been diagnosed, the ship's captain told passengers on the Diamond Princess on Monday. The outbreak on the 3,700-person ship, which is carrying more than 400 people from the United States, is now the largest outside China. The passengers and crew members have been quarantined on the ship since Feb. 3, and Japanese officials have reportedly said they cannot test everyone on board.At last count, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said there had been 398 people under investigation for infection in 37 states and territories, of which 318 came back negative. Sixty-eight of those possible cases were still pending as of Monday morning. Twelve cases have previously been confirmed in Arizona, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, and Wisconsin.Two of those 12 cases were spread through person-to-person transmission, and all others were patients who had recently traveled to China. There is no vaccine yet for the virus, but experts have emphasized that the risk to the average American remains low, even as they expect to confirm more cases in the coming days and weeks. The CDC said last week that it had shipped hundreds of diagnostic test kits to labs across the country, enabling states to begin their own testing instead of shipping all samples to federal facilities in Atlanta.For his part, President Donald Trump waded into the issue on Monday, telling pool reporters that viruses "typically" subside in April "with the heat, as the heat comes in." "We're in great shape, though. We have 12 cases," said Trump. "Many of them are in good shape now."From Lobsters and Steak to Coronavirus: One Couple's Surreal Cruise NightmareOutside China, including the U.S., there were 319 confirmed cases in 24 countries on Monday, according to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization. Speaking from Geneva, Switzerland, Tedros referred to the "concerning" case of "onward transmission" that reportedly infected five British nationals, including a child, at a French mountain resort. The group were said to have had contact with another British man who contracted the virus in Singapore."The detection of this small number of cases could be the spark that becomes a bigger fire," Tedros said."For now, it's only a spark," he continued. "Our objective remains containment. We call on all countries to use the window of opportunity we have to prevent a bigger fire."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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| 2 Russian spacecraft are trailing a US spy satellite and could create a 'dangerous situation in space' Posted: 10 Feb 2020 10:50 AM PST  A US satellite used to capture images of Earth is being followed by a pair of Russian satellites, the commander of the Space Force said.
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| Here’s how many bombs the US plans to buy in the next year Posted: 10 Feb 2020 03:46 PM PST  The U.S. is slowing down its procurement of weapons that are used in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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| Nigeria’s Buhari Asks Lawmakers to Approve $3.3B Eurobond Sale Posted: 11 Feb 2020 08:39 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Next Africa newsletter and follow Bloomberg Africa on TwitterNigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has asked the National Assembly to approve the sale of $3.3 billion in Eurobonds, marking the potential return of Africa's top oil producer to debt markets after staying out last year.Finance Ministry spokesman Yunusa Abdullahi told Bloomberg a road show for the bond sale will start after the approval of lawmakers. Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed said in December the West African nation was seeking funds for the implementation of the 2020 budget and will first talk to concessional lenders before considering fresh loans. Investors appetite for high-yielding debt remains strong despite growing concerns about the impact the coronavirus outbreak could have on the economies of high-indebted African nations. Gabon, one of the lowest-rated sovereigns in Africa, sold $1 billion in Eurobonds last month followed by Ghana that sold the longest-ever Eurobond as part of a $3 billion dealTo contact the reporter on this story: Alonso Soto in Abuja at asoto54@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Osae-Brown at aosaebrown2@bloomberg.netFor 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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| Ukraine's president fires chief of staff after reports of turf war Posted: 11 Feb 2020 01:48 AM PST  Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed his chief of staff Andriy Bogdan on Tuesday, cutting ties with a lawyer whose links with a prominent tycoon had made him one of Zelenskiy's most controversial appointments since taking office last year. No official explanation was immediately given for the dismissal but it came after reports of a turf war between Bogdan and Andriy Yermak, a senior presidential aide who has now been appointed to replace him. Zelenskiy appeared to hint at this in an interview published by Interfax Ukraine on Tuesday, saying that internal conflicts within his team had prevented it from working effectively.
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| WHO warns of 'very grave' global virus threat Posted: 11 Feb 2020 03:42 AM PST  The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that the novel coronavirus was a "very grave threat" for the planet as it hosted the first major conference on fighting the epidemic. "With 99 percent of cases in China, this remains very much an emergency for that country, but one that holds a very grave threat for the rest of the world," WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the start of the meeting. The virus, first identified in the city of Wuhan in central China on December 31, has killed more than 1,000 people, infected over 42,000 and reached some 25 countries.
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| The Army's New Interceptor Missiles Are The Swiss Army Knives Of Anti-Air Fire Posted: 10 Feb 2020 04:53 PM PST  The Multi-Mission Launcher has already performed well in tests.
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| Arkansas officer on leave after placing student in chokehold Posted: 10 Feb 2020 04:06 PM PST |
| New York man who posted photos of dead teen online pleads guilty to her murder Posted: 10 Feb 2020 04:30 PM PST  "I've thought about Bianca and how she didn't deserve what happened to her," Brandon Clark said in court.
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| China's Communist Party is purging local officials as public anger mounts at coronavirus epidemic that has killed more than 1,000 Posted: 10 Feb 2020 10:53 PM PST  China has removed high-ranking officials in the Hubei province amid public outcry over the mounting death toll of the coronavirus outbreak.
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| Michael Bloomberg creeps into 3rd place in new national poll Posted: 10 Feb 2020 03:02 PM PST  Quinnipiac University released a new national poll Monday. Sen. Bernie Sanders took his first lead among Democratic presidential candidates in the poll, while the usual frontrunner, former Vice President Joe Biden, dropped 9 points. He's still in second place, but billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg looks like he's encroaching on Biden's turf, jumping up 8 points, which puts him in third place.
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| Michelle Malkin Endorses Racist CPAC Rival Posted: 11 Feb 2020 02:14 AM PST  This week: * CPAC gets a racist rival, with help from Michelle Malkin * Fox News leak questions Sean Hannity's guest list * Check out this book! * Seth Rich conspiracy theorists get a big boostCPAC, but for white nationalists: Later this month, conservative operatives from all over the country will head to a hotel outside Washington for the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual mega-confab for all things Trump. But this time, CPAC will face a racist rival conference at an undisclosed location nearby: the "America First Political Action Conference," featuring two speakers who marched in the white supremacist Charlottesville rally in 2017. Ordinarily, a gathering this fringe wouldn't mean much for the right—except for the fact that Michelle Malkin, one of the most prominent conservative columnists in the country, is also speaking. Malkin's headlining role raises questions about how far racist ideas are infiltrating the mainstream right. The backstory here is that a particularly online section of the right has been riven for the past few months between "groypers"—the white nationalist activists and their fellow travelers—and more establishment conservative elements like Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA and the organizers of CPAC. Organized around white nationalist Nick Fuentes, the "groypers"—who take their name from an obese toad version of Pepe the Frog—started showing up at Turning Point events and shouting down speakers like Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX). They claimed that Crenshaw and his allies aren't conservative enough, and many of their questions were aimed at questioning the United States' support for Israel, in an attempt to "red-pill" campus conservatives toward more extreme views.Malkin has gone all-in on the groypers, apparently because of her hardline stance on immigration. She joined the encrypted messaging app Telegram—their preferred social media platform—and even lost her speaker's bureau contract over it. Now Malkin, who had a headlining speech at CPAC just last year, is positioning the racist AFPAC variation as the real conservative conference. She'll appear at the event alongside Fuentes, a Holocaust denier, and Patrick Casey, the leader of a white nationalist group that rebranded after its internal chat logs leaked. Malkin's appearance at AFPAC raises the embarrassing possibility that plenty of CPAC attendees will head over to AFPAC on Friday night, linking the conservative movement's leading conference with white nationalists.Malkin has promoted AFPAC on Twitter and declared that, unlike CPAC, it would have no "swamp lobbyists lurking backstage." Malkin didn't respond to a request for comment. But her appearance at the white nationalist event suggests that the far-right, racist "groyper" ethos is getting more entrenched with conservatives. Want this in your inbox? sign up now!* * *Fox critiques its own Ukraine coverage: Even some of Fox News' own researchers do not believe the claims made by a number of Sean Hannity's most frequent guests, according to an internal Fox document I reported on last week. In a report from Fox's in-house research unit, a researcher blasted guests like John Solomon and Rudy Giuliani, accusing them of pushing a Ukrainian disinformation campaign.* * *Right Richter Reading Corner: If you like Right Richter and its coverage of marginal, bizarre Trumpland characters, you're going to love the new book Sinking in the Swamp. It's the latest from my colleagues Asawin Suebsaeng and Lachlan Markay, it's coming out on Tuesday, and it's filled with bizarre stories about what the Trump era means for our country. Check it out!* * *Seth Rich conspiracy theories flare anew: It's been a lean couple of years for Seth Rich conspiracy theorists. The people fixated on the 2016 murder of the Democratic National Committee staffer had their high point in 2017, when Hannity and a Fox reporter pushed the baseless idea that Hillary Clinton had Rich killed for leaking hacked Democratic emails to WikiLeaks. Hannity started losing advertisers, Rich's family sued Fox, and the channel ditched the story. Since then, the most prominent Rich conspiracy theorist has been vlogger Matt Couch—a guy with a sizable fringe following but not exactly a household name on the right. That all might be about to change now, though, after redacted emails obtained from the Department of Justice with the subject line "Seth Rich" were released earlier this month.While the emails are all brief and are just about people dismissing the idea that Rich was involved in the WikiLeaks email hack, they've been seized on by Rich conspiracy theorists. And they've made their way over to OAN, the cable network that Trump increasingly praises in an attempt to push Fox rightward. Last week, OAN ran an entire segment about the emails, with the headline proclaiming: "Attorney: FBI Had Been Lying About The Murder Of Seth Rich." The blast of cable news attention has reinvigorated Seth Rich conspiracy theorists, suggesting that the saga the Rich family has long asked speculators to end won't be stopping anytime soon. 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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| 'We are floating around the ocean': Cruise ship with no coronavirus shut out of ports Posted: 09 Feb 2020 01:31 PM PST  There are no cases of the coronavirus aboard Holland America's MS Westerdam, but after a stop in Hong Kong, it can't find a port to dock.
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| Iraq cleric Sadr dissolves units accused of deadly attacks on protests Posted: 11 Feb 2020 08:06 AM PST  Controversial Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr announced on Tuesday he was dissolving the "blue caps", an organised unit of his supporters accused of deadly attacks on anti-government protests in recent days. Sadr, who has a cult-like following of several million Iraqis, had first backed the popular rallies demanding a government overhaul when they erupted in October, but has switched course multiple times in recent weeks. Since then, diehard Sadr supporters wearing blue caps have raided protest camps in Baghdad and the Shiite-majority south, with eight protesters killed in the ensuing violence.
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| More than two-thirds of migrants fleeing Central American region had family taken or killed Posted: 11 Feb 2020 09:06 AM PST  Study finds 42.5% interviewees leaving Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador reported the violent death of a relativeMore than two-thirds of the migrants fleeing Central America's northern triangle countries – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – experienced the murder, disappearance or kidnapping of a relative before their departure, according to a new study by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).The MSF study said 42.5% of interviewees reported the violent death of a relative over the previous two years, while 16.2% had a relative forcibly disappeared and 9.2% had a loved one kidnapped.The study – based on interviews with migrants and refugees at MSF medical facilities in Central America and Mexico – once again showed the despair driving migrants to abandon some the hemisphere's poorest, most violent and most corrupt countries."We're speaking of human beings, not numbers," Sergio Martín, MSF general coordinator in Mexico, said at the study's presentation on Tuesday. "In many cases, it's clear that migration is the only possible way out. Staying put is not an option."In 45.8% of the interviews, migrants said that "exposure to violent situations" was a key reason for leaving their home country. Of those fleeing due to violence, 36.4% had become internally displaced in their countries of origin, but were eventually forced to flee.The research was published at a time when the US border is becoming increasingly difficult to reach.Mexico has been launched a crackdown against people trying to cross its southern frontier and deployed its newly-created National Guard to dismantle large groups of migrants, while the Trump administration has made the asylum process practically impossible for most applicants.US officials are returning asylum seekers to dangerous Mexican border cities – where MSF has found many are kidnapped and preyed upon by drug cartels – under scheme known as migrant protection protocols to await their court cases. Some migrants are now being flown to Guatemala to apply for asylum in the impoverished Central American country."The aggressive migration policies adopted by the US and Mexico mean that more and more people are trapped in a vicious circle," the MSF report stated. "Patients describe an increase in the predatory violence perpetuated by criminal organisations operating along the migrant route."Meanwhile, violence against migrants transit Mexico is escalating, the study found: 39.2% of interviewees were assaulted in the country, while 27.3% were threatened or extorted – with the actual figures likely higher than the official statistics as victims tend not to report crimes committed against them.Nearly 6% of migrants reported witnessing a death during their time in Mexico, according to MSF. In 17.9% of those cases, it was a murder.Members of MSF teams have themselves witnessed kidnappings outside migrant shelters."The physical obstacles to entering the United States are taken for granted. But what surprises (migrants) … is the violence that they experience in Mexico," the report said."Coming from a country where violence is endemic, they decide to make the journey because they have no other option."Violence is just of a range of factors driving migration, and motives vary from region to region and country to country.A 2019 survey from Creative Associates International found violence was the main driver of migration for 38% of Salvadorans, 18% of Hondurans and 14% of Guatemalans. In Guatemala – the main source of migrants detained at the US border with Mexico – 71% of respondents cited "economic concerns" as their main motive.Climate change is increasingly being recognized as a driver of migration – especially from areas in Central America's "Dry Corridor" – as is political corruption."Over the last 20 years in Honduras, the poverty rate hasn't fallen beneath 60%," said Father Germán Calix, Honduras director of the Catholic Church's charitable arm Caritas."The lack of policies and actions in favor of the poor has been such that people have lost confidence that this situation can ever be reversed from Honduras."
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| Utah sends employees to Mexico for lower prescription prices Posted: 10 Feb 2020 07:04 AM PST  Ann Lovell had never owned a passport before last year. Now, the 62-year-old teacher is a frequent flier, traveling every few months to Tijuana, Mexico, to buy medication for rheumatoid arthritis — with tickets paid for by the state of Utah's public insurer. Lovell is one of about 10 state workers participating in a year-old program to lower prescription drug costs by having public employees buy their medication in Mexico at a steep discount compared to U.S. prices.
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| Parkland father not invited to Trump meeting with victim families after shouting at State of the Union Posted: 10 Feb 2020 10:10 AM PST  The father of a student killed during a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida was not invited to Donald Trump's meeting with families of victims after he shouted down the president at the State of the Union address.Fred Guttenburg's 14-year-old daughter Jamie was among the 17 people killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on 14 February 2018.
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| A Chinese citizen journalist who went viral for his reporting on coronavirus from Wuhan has gone missing, and his family says he's been forcibly quarantined Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:18 AM PST  Chen Qiushi is a Chinese lawyer and citizen journalist whose social media profiles grew popular for his video reporting in Hong Kong and in Wuhan.
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| Russia Has A New T-90M Tank, And We Have The Details Posted: 11 Feb 2020 02:00 AM PST  Everything you want to know.
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| Priest says "pedophilia doesn't kill anyone" but abortion does Posted: 10 Feb 2020 03:15 AM PST  First he banned legislators who supported an abortion-rights bill from becoming godparents and receiving communion. Now, he's doubling down.
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| Xi warned officials that efforts to stop virus could hurt economy: sources Posted: 10 Feb 2020 10:30 PM PST  Chinese President Xi Jinping warned top officials last week that efforts to contain the new coronavirus had gone too far, threatening the country's economy, sources told Reuters, days before Beijing rolled out measures to soften the blow. With growth at its slowest in nearly three decades, China's leaders seem eager to strike a balance between protecting an already-slowing economy and stamping out an epidemic that has killed more than 1,000 people and infected more than 40,000. After reviewing reports on the outbreak from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and other economic departments, Xi told local officials during a Feb 3 meeting of the Politburo's Standing Committee that some of the actions taken to contain the virus are harming the economy, said two people familiar with the meeting, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
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| Coronavirus: Thailand reportedly turns away Holland America, leaving cruise in limbo Posted: 11 Feb 2020 06:43 AM PST Thailand has reportedly turned away Holland America's MS Westerdam which had been previously scheduled for disembarkation in Laem Chabang on Thursday.
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| Biden calls voter a 'lying dog-faced pony soldier' Posted: 09 Feb 2020 10:07 PM PST  Former US vice president Joe Biden drew criticism Sunday after he called a woman a "lying dog-faced pony soldier" at a campaign event in New Hampshire. In an exchange that was widely shared on social media, 21-year-old Georgia college student Madison Moore asked the presidential hopeful to explain his poor performance in the Iowa caucus last week. "It's a good question," replied Biden, whose status as national frontrunner for the Democratic nomination was shaken by a damaging fourth-place showing in Iowa's caucuses.
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| Germany Is One of the Biggest Brexit Losers Posted: 10 Feb 2020 10:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- A somber feeling is spreading among Germany's elites, as the long-term implications of Brexit sink in. Of the European Union's 27 member states, Ireland obviously has the most to fear from the U.K.'s departure. But Germany may be second. That's because Brexit changes not only the remaining EU but also Germany's role within it — and in ways the Germans have for half a century been trying to avoid.European integration, starting in the 1950s, was for West Germany a way of atoning for its own nationalist and belligerent past. Its citizens were eager to subsume part of their identity in a "post-nationalist," rules-based, non-militarist and largely mercantile entity, in return for being accepted again by their neighbors. Occupied by three of the Allied Powers, they didn't have full national sovereignty, so they didn't worry about ceding more of it to Brussels.To move this European project forward, the Germans relied on different kinds of support from the Allies. To build the structures that later became the EU, they needed France. The French, however, especially under President Charles de Gaulle, saw "Europe" differently: as reconciliation with Germany, yes, but also as a new vector to project French power, the better to keep the mightier "Anglo-Saxons" at bay.Those Anglo-Saxons were of course the U.S. and the U.K., the other two powers the West Germans needed. The U.S. protected them against the Soviets, and kept international order generally. And the Brits were basically a smaller, more familiar — and European — version of the Americans, and thus a welcome counterweight against the French.In fact, German Francophilia was always less a phenomenon than a policy, imposed top-down; by contrast, German Anglophilia spread from the bottom up (even if it wasn't often reciprocated). It helped that the Brits after the war competently ran and rebuilt northwestern Germany — the ancestral homelands, as Germans noted tongue-in-cheek, of the Anglo-Saxons and the Hanoverian kings of England. Once the Beatles showed up in Hamburg, it was basically love all the way.The West Germans also had political motivations for wanting to hug the U.K. inside the European club, against the stubborn resistance of de Gaulle. Germany and France have always had clashing economic traditions. The French one, called dirigisme, is based on state intervention and looks askance at free markets and free trade. The German one, called ordoliberalism, is based on restricting the state to narrow functions (such as antitrust) and otherwise leaving markets and trade pretty free.The Germans thus saw the Brits, like the Dutch, as more naturally aligned in values than the French. Having the U.K. in the club meant that the "north" could gang up in the Council of Ministers (the body in Brussels where member states decide policy). And it did. A fluid "Nordic" bloc has usually had enough votes to veto "southern" ideas it didn't like, even as the European club expanded its membership. Projects driven primarily by the Brits and Germans include the single market, rigorous competition policy and liberal trade deals. Projects they successfully prevented (at least until now) include a European "industrial policy," which tends to be French code for coddling national champions.Brexit means that the center of gravity in the EU has now shifted southeast, in the European Parliament but above all in the Council. With the U.K., the north (defined as Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands) had a blocking minority of 36.8%. Without the U.K., that share has dropped to 27.8%, too small for a veto. Even when Austria and the Baltics are included, the north can now be overruled.Other fault lines crisscross this political geography that are just as treacherous for Germany. They run not only between north and south but also between west and east. For example, the Visegrad four (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) have joined to reject the EU's migrant policy, which they see as dictated by Germany after the refugee crisis of 2015, and they've rallied support from Germany's traditional partners, such as Austria. Depending on the issue, other alliances are constantly taking shape, often aimed against the largest member state, Germany.Geographically and politically, Germany thus finds itself, once again, squeezed in the uncomfortable middle. Historically, this tension is known the German Question and has repeatedly led to troubles. Owing to its "awkward scale," as one former West German chancellor put it, Germany was always either too weak (in the 17th and 18th centuries) or too strong (in the late 19th and early 20th) for the continent to be stable. Other powers either ganged up against it or were dominated by it. As the writer Thomas Mann memorably put it, the continent is forever condemned to choosing between "a German Europe" or "a European Germany."Having the U.K. in the EU mitigated that dilemma. Britain was weighty enough — economically, demographically, militarily — to balance Germany, France and the continent. And nobody was happier about being balanced than the Germans, for the last thing they want is to be forced to lead, knowing that this will invariably rekindle old resentments against them. Brexit means that balance is gone again. The German Question is back.The Brits shouldn't have been surprised that Germany wasn't more forthcoming during Brexit negotiations; for Germans, the cohesion of the EU, and the relationship with France, simply takes precedence. Nonetheless, many Germans have regrets. Some are pushing for a German-British Friendship Treaty to complement whatever deal the EU and the U.K. come up with. Unspoken is an almost primal plea: Dear Brits, please don't leave us continentals to ourselves. To contact the author of this story: Andreas Kluth at akluth1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andreas Kluth is a member of Bloomberg's editorial board. He was previously editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Mississippi inmate death toll rises amid emergency extension Posted: 10 Feb 2020 06:36 PM PST  Another Mississippi inmate died Monday, the same day the governor extended an emergency order allowing the state to quickly spend money to try to resolve problems in a prison system beset by violence and poor living conditions. The two developments were announced separately, and there was no indication that Gov. Tate Reeves' extension of the emergency order was in response to the latest death. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Mississippi prisons after a string of inmate deaths.
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| Lynching preachers: How black pastors resisted Jim Crow and white pastors incited racial violence Posted: 10 Feb 2020 05:57 AM PST  White lynch mobs in America murdered at least 4,467 people between 1883 and 1941, hanging, burning, dismembering, garroting and blowtorching their victims. Their violence was widespread but not indiscriminate: About 3,300 of the lynched were black, according to the most recent count by sociologists Charles Seguin and David Rigby. The remaining dead were white, Mexican, of Mexican descent, Native American, Chinese or Japanese. Such numbers, based on verifiable newspaper reports, represent a minimum. The full human toll of racial lynching may remain ever beyond reach.Religion was no barrier for these white murderers, as I've discovered in my research on Christianity and lynch mobs in the Reconstruction-era South. White preachers incited racial violence, joined the Ku Klux Klan and lynched black people. Sometimes, the victim was a pastor. Buttressing white supremacyWhen considering American racial terror, the first question to answer is not how a lynch mob could kill a man of the cloth but why white lynch mobs killed at all. The typical answer from Southern apologists was that only black men who raped white women were targeted. In this view, lynching was "popular justice" – the response of an aggrieved community to a heinous crime.Journalists like Ida B. Wells and early sociologists like Monroe Work saw through that smokescreen, finding that only about 20% to 25% of lynching victims were alleged rapists. About 3% were women. Some were children. Black people were lynched for murder or assault, or on suspicion that they committed those crimes. They could also be lynched for looking at a white woman or for bumping the shoulder of a white woman. Some were killed for being near or related to someone accused of the aforementioned offenses.Identifying the dead is supremely difficult work. As sociologists Amy Kate Bailey and Stewart Tolnay argue persuasively in their 2015 book "Lynched," very little is known about lynching victims beyond their gender and race. But by cross-referencing news reports with census data, scholars and civil rights organizations are uncovering more details.One might expect that mobs seeking to destabilize the black community would focus on the successful and the influential – people like preachers or prominent business owners. Instead, lynching disproportionately targeted lower-status black people – individuals society would not protect, like the agricultural worker Sam Hose of Georgia and men like Henry Smith, a Texas handyman accused of raping and killing a three-year-old girl. The rope and the pyre snuffed out primarily the socially marginal: the unemployed, the unmarried, the precarious – often not the prominent – who expressed any discontentment with racial caste.That's because lynching was a form of social control. By killing workers with few connections who could be economically replaced – and doing so in brutal, public ways that struck terror into black communities – lynching kept white supremacy on track. Fight from the front linesSo black ministers weren't often lynching victims, but they could be targeted if they got in the way. I.T. Burgess, a preacher in Putnam County, Florida, was hanged in 1894 after being accused of planning to instigate a revolt, according to a May 30, 1894, story in the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Later that year, in December, the Constitution also reported, Lucius Turner, a preacher near West Point, Georgia, was shot by two brothers for apparently writing an insulting note to their sister. Ida B. Wells wrote in her 1895 editorial "A Red Record" about Reverend King, a minister in Paris, Texas, who was beaten with a Winchester Rifle and placed on a train out of town. His offense, he said, was being the only person in Lamar County to speak against the horrific 1893 lynching of the handyman Henry Smith. In each of these cases, the victim's profession was ancillary to their lynching. But preaching was not incidental to black pastors' resistance to lynching. My dissertation research shows black pastors across the U.S. spoke out against racial violence during its worst period, despite the clear danger that it put them in. Many, like the Washington, D.C., Presbyterian pastor Francis Grimke, preached to their congregations about racial violence. Grimke argued for comprehensive anti-racist education as a way to undermine the narratives that led to lynching.Other pastors wrote furiously about anti-black violence. Charles Price Jones, the founder of the Church of God (Holiness) in Mississippi, for example, wrote poetry affirming the African heritage of black Americans. Sutton Griggs, a black Baptist pastor from Texas, wrote novels that were, in reality, thinly veiled political treatises. Pastors wrote articles against lynching in their own denominational newspapers. By any means necessarySome white pastors decried racial terror, too. But others used the pulpit to instigate violence. On June 21, 1903, the white pastor of Olivet Presbyterian church in Delaware used his religious leadership to incite a lynching. Preaching to a crowd of 3,000 gathered in downtown Wilmington, Reverend Robert A. Elwood urged the jury in the trial of George White – a black farm laborer accused of raping and killing a 17-year-old white girl, Helen Bishop – to pronounce White guilty speedily. Otherwise, Elwood continued, according to a June 23, 1903 New York Times article, White should be lynched. He cited the Biblical text 1 Corinthians 5:13, which orders Christians to "expel the wicked person from among you." "The responsibility for lynching would be yours for delaying the execution of the law," Elwood thundered, exhorting the jury.George White was dragged out of jail the next day, bound and burned alive in front of 2,000 people. The following Sunday, a black pastor named Montrose W. Thornton discussed the week's barbarities with his own congregation in Wilmington. He urged self-defense."There is but one part left for the persecuted negro when charged with crime and when innocent. Be a law unto yourself," he told his parishioners. "Die in your tracks, perhaps drinking the blood of your pursuer." Newspapers around the country denounced both sermons. An editorial in the Washington Star said both pastors had "contributed to the worst passions of the mob."By inciting lynching and advocating for self defense, the editors judged, Elwood and Thornton had "brought the pulpit into disrepute." [You're smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation's authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Lynching memorial shows women were victims, too * Maryland has created a truth commission on lynchings – can it deliver?Malcolm Brian Foley 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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| 'Fear and chaos': Andrew Yang staffers are furious over sudden layoffs and a campaign near collapse Posted: 11 Feb 2020 06:05 AM PST  "He talks about giving every American $1,000 a month but can't give his own campaign staffers severance," a staffer said. "It's infuriating."
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| This Data Shows That Trump’s ‘Blue Collar Boom’ Is a Bust Posted: 10 Feb 2020 05:07 PM PST  Next time you read a story about a raise in pay, try to see if it reports the wage data in nominal or real terms and if it includes fringe benefits.
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| FACTBOX-FAA details steps needed to get Boeing 737 MAX flying Posted: 11 Feb 2020 06:00 AM PST |
| Mountain lion is first to be killed under California's "3-strike" law Posted: 10 Feb 2020 07:27 PM PST  This marks the first time a mountain lion with a tracking collar has been killed under the state's depredation law in the Santa Monica Mountains, according to the National Park Service.
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| Russians Think Triumphant Trump Is More Their Man Than Ever Posted: 11 Feb 2020 02:24 AM PST  Russian state media have welcomed enthusiastically the recent U.S. Senate acquittal of President Donald J. Trump. Having predicted this outcome for his impeachment trial, Russian experts and state-media pundits are anticipating beneficial side effects for the Kremlin as Trump is more Trump—and more Russia's Trump—than ever.Friday Night Massacre's Just the Beginning for Acquitted TrumpDmitry Kiselyov, the host of Russia's popular Sunday news program Vesti Nedeli, said, "Democrats are openly raging, but while they're licking their wounds, Trump can now objectively afford to pursue a more positive course of action toward Russia—just as he planned all along while being elected for the first term." Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent invitation to Trump to attend Victory Day festivities in Moscow this spring is designed to bring the U.S. president ever deeper into the Kremlin fold. Appearing on Sunday Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, politician Sergey Stankevich asserted, "Donald Trump has to come to Moscow in May, no doubt about it. He is obligated to be here."Expecting concessions from Trump, the Russian state media are playing along with his agenda, attacking Democrats, the Ukraine whistleblower, and impeachment witnesses. Vesti Nedeli described the ouster of the Vindman brothers as Trump "settling the scores" against those who dared to speak up against him. It repeated a previously debunked conspiracy theory baselessly claiming Yevgeny Vindman was assigned to review former National Security Adviser John Bolton's book manuscript before "leaking the draft to the press."Pundits on Vladimir Soloviev's show appeared practically giddy about Trump's acquittal and the retaliatory onslaught that followed. "Trump pulled out a machine gun and started to purge everyone who ever said a bad word about him," exclaimed Dmitry Egorchenkov, director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts, "because in his mythologized world, he is now a superhero." Egorchenkov compared the copy of The Washington Post that Trump held up for the world to see to "the severed head of his dead enemy. He couldn't show off the head of [Joe] Biden, so he was holding up The Washington Post instead." (He also held up other papers, including USA Today, but the Post was the grand prize.)Russian experts previously anticipated that the reset in U.S. relations with Russia would have to wait until Trump's second term in office. But Egorchenkov opined that in his mind, Trump already won re-election, which is why the new ambassador to the Russian Federation, John J. Sullivan, arrived with a mandate to improve relations with Russia. For his part, Putin created an opening for mutual cooperation when he proposed during his annual state-of-the-nation address that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, and France—start convening together "in order to prevent global conflicts." Egorchenkov described the initiative as "ingenious" since this move would allow Trump to normalize relations with Russia under the guise of pursuing world peace.Russian experts say that moving forward with such a concept would require a blank-slate approach, calling for the removal of Western sanctions against the Russian Federation imposed after Putin seized and annexed Crimea, backed a separatist war that has killed 14,000 people in eastern Ukraine, and worked to disrupt the 2016 U.S. elections and tilt them in Trump's favor. Russia also was caught in 2018 poisoning and nearly killing former intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in Britain. TV host Soloviev suggested Trump could "demonstrate goodwill" by immediately restoring the status of its closed Russian consulates and diplomatic annexes, shut down after the assassination attempt in the U.K., and lifting U.S. sanctions against Russia.Egorchenkov predicted Trump will promptly accept Putin's offer, since he will be making this decision "without the pressure of the Democratic Party" and free of the influence of "100 to 150 recently fired members of the National Security Council." On another gleeful note, political scientist Dmitry Evstafiev argued that "Trump might start to engage in McCarthyism, which will be the first step in the self-destruction of the American system." He predicted the disintegration of existing political institutions in the United States, prompted by Trump's outright rejection of bipartisanship, which will be replaced by the authoritarian system he is striving to create.Evstafiev marveled at the 97 percent GOP votes cast for Trump in Iowa and pointed out that these votes symbolize the hollowing out of the Republican Party, with no viable candidates who could follow in Trump's footsteps. The host, Soloviev, chimed in: "Except for his daughter, Ivanka." Evstafiev concurred and suggested that the Trump presidency is currently transitioning into the realm of authoritarian, clan-like regimes, "They keep telling us that it is impossible in the United States, but now we'll find out for ourselves."Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum remarked last week after a visit to Venezuela, "I observed, from Caracas, the finale of the impeachment trial, Romney's last stand, the firing of civil servants. All around me, people nodded wearily: Yes, they said, we've seen this before… Venezuela is not the U.S., Trump is not a Bolivarian socialist like [the late Hugo] Chavez, of course everything is different," she said. "But it is amazing how familiar Trump's behavior seemed to people who had lived through the decline of their own democracy."Russia's State TV Calls Trump Their 'Agent'"All of the elements were there," Applebaum wrote: "The strongman who made people laugh, who seemed authentic, 'different,' the appeal to fear and anger, and the hatred of 'elites.' Also, the fact that everyone saw what was happening and described it, in real time. Brilliant academics, excellent journalists—they all knew that the dictatorship was expanding, that Chavez's personal power was growing. But they couldn't stop it."The Kremlin would undoubtedly benefit from America becoming an authoritarian regime, unconstrained by constitutional checks and balances, far removed from defending human rights or promoting democratic values. "Trump forever," jeered the Russian state television channel Rossiya-1 host Artyom Sheynin. He asked a U.S. expert sarcastically, "Is America finished?" Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| A supervolcano in Utah? It's 30 times larger than Yellowstone's Posted: 10 Feb 2020 10:59 AM PST  A supervolcano discovered in southern Utah erupted 30 million years ago in an explosion 5,000 times larger than the Mount St. Helens disaster.
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| US open jobs fall sharply for 2nd straight month Posted: 11 Feb 2020 07:38 AM PST  U.S. businesses sharply cut the number of jobs they advertised in December for the second straight month, an unusual sign of weakness in an otherwise healthy job market. The number of available positions dropped 5.4% to 6.4 million, a historically solid number, the Labor Department said Tuesday. There are still more open jobs than there are unemployed people, an unusual situation that has persisted for nearly two years.
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