| ‘I have never seen him eat a vegetable’: With steak off the menu, officials scramble to feed fussy eater Trump in India Posted: 24 Feb 2020 07:24 AM PST  Donald Trump has embarked on his first presidential visit to India, the world's largest democracy – and home to the world's largest population of vegetarians. Since Mr Trump is a noted beef-eater, in particular a lover of steak and burgers, gastronomically speaking, the visit will prove one of his most challenging.It's not all bad news for Mr Trump. India's reputation for overwhelming vegetarianism is overstated, and it's thought that more families eat beef at home than generally admit it.
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| A California man drove his Jeep off the roof of a six-level parking garage and crashed into a McDonald's, police say Posted: 23 Feb 2020 06:49 PM PST  Police say a California man drove a Jeep off a parking garage and into a McDonald's. Two people dove out of the car before it crashed.
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| 10,000 mourn victims of racist shooting rampage in Germany Posted: 23 Feb 2020 11:00 AM PST  Around 10,000 protesters marched through the central German town of Hanau on Sunday to mourn the nine people who were killed by an immigrant-hating gunman four days ago. "These days and hours are the blackest and darkest our town has ever experienced during peace times," Hanau mayor Claus Kaminsky told the somber crowds, according to the German news agency dpa. Five of the victims were reported to be Turkish citizens.
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| Donald, Melania, Ivanka, and Jared Visited the Taj Mahal. Their Poses Spoke Volumes. Posted: 24 Feb 2020 10:14 AM PST  Melania Trump stood in front of the Taj Mahal, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a symbol of devotion to his wife, Mumtaz, and watched her open-mouthed husband bellow to photographers.Her high-necked, ivory jumpsuit matched the exterior of the famed marble mausoleum (CNN's Kate Bennett identified the one piece as made by Trump's stylist, Hervé Pierre). It came with a moss green sash made of "vintage Indian textile" that slightly clashed with her husband's canary yellow tie. Still, the First Lady—known for looking absolutely miserable when out with her husband—appeared happy, or at least flashed a few more step-and-repeat smiles than normal. One tabloid described the pair as "loved-up," which is as big of a stretch as the notion that burger-loving Trump enjoyed his meatless Monday in India. Still, the Trumps were able to hold hands for a while, and they stood close while watching a flock of birds fly away, like two characters from a gothic poem. Trump Taj Mahal Slashed Security. Then the Murders Started.Ivanka, too, arrived with Jared Kushner in tow, though she kicked her husband out of her own picture. In a poppy-patterned turquoise dress which matched the reflection pool she stood in front of, Ivanka mugged with her vacant-eyed, but determined smile.If you have any doubts of any future political aspirations for this "presidential advisor," then (take a deep breath and) look at her Taj Mahal photo opp. Despite all those "Unwanted Ivanka" detractors, just like the building itself, she endures. In Ivanka's words, such resilience is "awe inspiring." Others might call her seemingly ceaseless, free vacations (thinly) disguised as diplomacy, a horror scenario. The Taj Mahal was completed after ten years of construction in 1653, outlasting threats from the Japanese Air Force in World War II, and Pakistan's bomber pilots in the late 1960s. But the historic site, frequently referenced as a Wonder of the World, has succumbed to one thing: the rich and powerful using it as a backdrop to make coded statements to the world. The tradition began in earnest with the 1992 image of Princess Diana on a marble bench, her body a lithe strip in a cherry red blazer, nearly dwarfed compared to the gargantuan building behind her. She went to the site alone, without her husband Prince Charles, implying a fissure in their not-so-storybook romance. But Diana was not the first celebrity photo opp at the Taj Mahal. In 1962, Jackie Kennedy took a solo trip to India and Pakistan, at a time when First Ladies did not often dabble in foreign diplomacy. For her pilgrimage to the spot, she wore a preppy blue and green sheath, projecting the Camelot-era's sunny confidence. Four years later, George Harrison snapped a selfie in front of the site, looking very anti-Kennedy in his counterculture duds of an unbuttoned cotton shirt and dark sunglasses. Since then, plenty of other young and famous men have come to the mausoleum in search of themselves, or at least a performative version of it.In 2015, the Facebook founder said the Taj Mahal was an example of "what people can build —and what love can motivate us to build," using the elegant language of a good copywriter to plug his company after paying respects. That same year, Leonardo DiCaprio visited too, while in the country working on a climate change documentary. It was a "secret trip;" DiCaprio asked tourists not to take pictures, because he was working. In 1995, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton also sat on one of the Taj Mahal's benches for photographers, sitting close and smiling, visual code for girl power. Five years after that, the first daughter would return with her father, Bill. In wide-angle snapshots of Donald and Melania strolling in front of the Taj Mahal, the yuge building's scope leaves the pair looking tiny, nearly as tall as the shrubs which line the monument's grassy aisles. Trump, who's got a thing for screaming about his own bigness, might not appreciate how tiny he looks. But for a man who views the presidency as just another prize to show off that he's won, the Taj Mahal visit was a success. The man whose legacy was once a knockoff-named casino now has got his photo in front of the real thing, joining the star-studded ranks of those who came before him. And as we've seen from this optics-obsessed administration so many times before, the facade is all that matters. 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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| It looks like people with no real interest in Bloomberg are signing up to be grassroots campaigners because he pays $2,500 a month Posted: 24 Feb 2020 04:46 AM PST  Mike Bloomberg's social-media army, who can command payments of $2,500 a month, have variable levels of commitment.
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| How South Korea’s Coronavirus Outbreak Got so Quickly out of Control Posted: 24 Feb 2020 12:37 AM PST  South Korea now has the highest number of coronavirus cases outside mainland China
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| Coronavirus updates: 5 dead and 200 infected in Italy as Europe braces for COVID-19 Posted: 24 Feb 2020 06:44 AM PST  As new hotspots arise in South Korea, Italy and Iran, here is the latest for Monday, Feb. 24.
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| Islamic Jihad says ends Gaza rocket fire at Israel after two-day flareup Posted: 24 Feb 2020 09:52 AM PST  Gaza militant group Islamic Jihad announced the end of its "military response" against Israel on Monday after a two-day exchange of fire just a week before the Jewish state's March 2 election. There was no immediate confirmation of a ceasefire from Israel, and AFP correspondents in the Palestinian enclave said Israeli airstrikes were ongoing early Monday evening. Islamic Jihad, a militant group allied to Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas, had fired some 60 rockets towards Israel since the killing of one of its fighters Sunday morning, according to the United Nations.
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| Sanders Brushes Off Questions on Costs, Age on ‘60 Minutes’ Posted: 23 Feb 2020 04:15 PM PST |
| Trump administration backs off sending coronavirus patients to Alabama -governor Posted: 23 Feb 2020 05:34 PM PST  The news came as worry grew over the spread outside China of the sometimes fatal virus, with a spike in the number of cases found in South Korea, Iran and Italy. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey tweeted that she had thanked Trump during a separate phone call.
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| 'It's my guilty pleasure': Sen. Chuck Schumer confirms spending $8,600 on Junior's cheesecake Posted: 24 Feb 2020 08:31 AM PST  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer admitted he has dropped almost $9,000 on his favorite cheesecake over the years. "Guilty as charged," he said.
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| Haiti police exchange fire with troops near national palace Posted: 23 Feb 2020 11:37 AM PST  PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitian police officers exchanged gunfire for hours Sunday with soldiers of the newly reconstituted army outside the national palace, in a dangerous escalation of protests over police pay and working conditions. At least three police officers were wounded, fellow officers told The Associated Press. Haiti's raucous three-day Carnival celebration was to have started Sunday afternoon in Port-au-Prince and other major cities but the government announced Sunday night that Carnival was cancelled in the capital "to avoid a bloodbath." Police protesters and their backers had burned dozens of Carnival floats and stands at recent protests, saying they did not believe the country should be celebrating during a crisis.
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| John Oliver explains how Narendra Modi is 'Marie Kondo-ing India' of Muslims, and why he might fail Posted: 24 Feb 2020 01:29 AM PST  President Trump has landed in India for his first state visit, "and at the center of it will be Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a man for whom Trump seems to have a great deal of affection," John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. While Modi may have charmed Trump, however, "within India he's an increasingly controversial figure, because his government has pursued a steadily escalating persecution of religious minorities -- persecution so intense that for the last two months, Indians across the country have been taking to the streets in anger."The charismatic, previously Teflon-coated Modi has both a "cult of personality" inside India and a new groundswell of opposition, Oliver said, "and if citizens in the world's largest democracy, home to over a billion people, are either wearing masks of Modi or marching in the streets, it seems like tonight it might be worth exploring why that is" and "where things could be heading."One of Modi's "defining beliefs" is Hindu nationalism, the idea that "India is a fundamentally Hindu nation -- which is provocative, given that India's founders, Gandhi and Nehru, explicitly disavowed that," Oliver said. While they created India as a secular nation, Modi's BJP party "has served as the political arm of a hard-core Hindu nationalist paramilitary group, the RSS," whose founders admired Hitler's aim to purify the race, he noted. India is home to the world's second-largest Muslim population, and while Modi doesn't say much publicly about Muslims, "those closest to him are comfortable saying a lot."And "since winning re-election, Modi has moved from quiet support for religious intolerance to concrete action," his government working to "strip millions of Muslims of citizenship, and they did it in a diabolically clever two-step way," Oliver said. "They're basically Marie Kondo-ing India, and it's only Muslims that don't seem to 'spark joy' in them." Now, "the government is now building detention camps for all the illegal immigrants that they are creating," and "the only glimmer of hope here is that for perhaps the first time in Modi's whole career, his actions are creating a massive and sustained backlash." Oliver ended with an image of the Taj Mahal and a message: "India, home to this enduring symbol of love, frankly deserves a lot more than this temporary symbol of hate." There is NSFW language. Watch below. More stories from theweek.com Elizabeth Warren rose to 2nd place in a new national poll after the Las Vegas debate The real third way in 2020 Bloomberg adviser accuses Warren of 'running interference' for Sanders
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| Elizabeth Warren's stellar debate in Las Vegas came too late to give her a big win in the Nevada caucuses Posted: 24 Feb 2020 06:54 AM PST  Warren came in fourth place in Nevada, but her campaign argues that gains from her pivotal debate might still materialize.
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| Putin Sent Her Activist Boyfriend to Siberia. Now She Wants to Go, Too. Posted: 24 Feb 2020 02:11 AM PST  MOSCOW—Few people are familiar with Novaya Zemlya, a very obscure archipelago above the Arctic Circle that is controlled by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the infamous Soviet spy agency, the KGB. Even fewer people hope to travel to those thinly populated and thoroughly militarized islands, where the Russian army tests its Arctic missile systems, and where polar bears suffering the effects of climate change dig through garbage pits at impoverished settlements. Alexei Navalny on Standing Up to Putin and His Murderous MinionsIt sounds like hell frozen over, in fact—and it figures in what looks like a new tactic by President Vladimir Putin (a former KGB operative) to intimidate his most vocal critics. But Kira Yarmysh has a special reason to go there. She is desperate to see her partner, who became the first victim of such an operation last December."The FSB abducted my boyfriend, Ruslan Shaveddinov, and isolated him in Novaya Zemlya," Yarmysh told The Daily Beast. "The most outrageous truth is that several divisions of the state system, including military authorities, aviation, and secret services, are helping to hide Ruslan from us." This was hardly a random act. Yarmysh is a news presenter and spokesperson for Russia's top opposition leader, Aleksei Navalny, and his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). Shaveddinov is one of the group's star reporters and presenters as well.Russia still has a military draft, and 12 months of service are mandatory for all male citizens age 18 to 33. Shaveddinov, known as "Shav," has been famous for presenting vivid, well-documented corruption investigations on YouTube. But at 23 years old, he was vulnerable, and authorities claimed he was draft-dodging.The news agency TASS quotes Moscow's military commissar, Col. Maksim Loktev, claiming the conscription of Shaveddinov was perfectly ordinary: "He departed to the place of his military service on the draft." But the young activist's colleagues aren't buying it. It's not just the matter of conscription; it's the deployment that's suspicious."This is a unique example of how the FSB begins to use military service as a prison for politically active young men," Navalny told The Daily Beast. "I think the order was to isolate Shav."Viewers all over Russia recognize Yarmysh and Shaveddinov from YouTube, which is the main outlet for Navalny's reports. More than three million viewed their presentation last summer (while Navalny was in jail) about Moscow Deputy Mayor Natalia Sergunina. They reported she was making millions of dollars off property deals in the Russian capital for companies controlled by her relatives, an allegation that she has denied. There are frequent police raids on FBK offices, along with confiscations of computers, cellphones, and video cameras. On July 27, members of an armed special unit raided Yarmysh's home at dawn, woke the couple up, put Ruslan on the floor, and confiscated all of the digital equipment. After a tough 2019, Kira and Ruslan looked forward to celebrating the New Year's holiday together, without any people around. But on Dec. 23, Kira's boyfriend vanished and his cellphone was not answered. His friends found the door to his apartment broken. Nearly 24 hours later, Yarmysh discovered that her partner was more than 3,000 kilometers (some 2,000 miles) away, in a unit of what's called the 33rd Guards Rocket Army based in Rogachevo village on the Southern Island of Novaya Zemlya. Yarmysh had never heard much about the rules of the archipelago and the news came as a shock: there was an old nuclear testing ground near Ruslan's base; she could not visit his island without a special FSB permit. Then Ruslan called her, and what she heard broke her heart, she says."There were two army captains with him listening in our conversation, so every time I asked him how he was, he said, 'Let's talk about you," Yarmysh remembered. "He told me he was banned from using his cellphone, which is a violation—every Russian soldier can call home once a week! So I decided to sue his commander."Yarmysh wanted to be present during the court hearing last week, and, of course, to see Ruslan. She requested an FSB permit earlier this month, but days passed and there was no word back. The court hearing was scheduled for last Wednesday, but a Moscow judge on the case was not able to get to Novaya Zemlya, Yarmysh said—the flight got canceled due to harsh weather conditions. (This is not unusual given the brutal Arctic weather.) "They regularly cancel flights during the winter, so I am surprised that the army managed to transport Ruslan there so easily in December," Yarmysh said. "It is obvious that the weather is not an issue, if there is an order to bring the guy."Finally a hearing was held at the end of the week, and a lawyer from the Navalny team was able to make it there, but there was no satisfaction to be had and communications were spotty. At midday on Saturday, Yarmysh tweeted that she still had heard nothing about her boyfriend's fated. (A troll responded with pictures of polar bears eating a bloody corpse: "Found him. But no need to thank me.")The lawyer finally got in touch late Saturday, but only briefly. He reported that, officially, the court said Shaveddinov had no unusual restrictions. But in practical terms that was no consolation, and Yarmysh said she couldn't be sure what happened until the attorney made it back to Moscow. As of Monday, however, he was till stuck above the Arctic Circle because of the weather."Prisoners have more rights than Ruslan," Yarmysh told The Daily Beast. "He doesn't have any right to call, or even to send letters."Yarmysh grew up in Rostov-on-Don, a provincial southern town on the border with Ukraine's Donbas region. Her single mother brought her up dreaming that one day Kira would win The Clever Heads, a televised competition for high-schoolers that awards the winners with a chance to enroll in Russia's most prestigious university for future diplomats, the MGIMO, or Moscow State Institute of International Relations. And, yes, Yarmysh won.While studying at MGIMO, she thought she would one day get a diplomat's position in Africa, far from the Russian political scene. But anti-Putin street protests in 2011-2012 changed her life, and she wound up on the front line of the opposition's constant fight with corrupt bureaucrats. Her mother has always been an Aleksey Navalny fan, Yarmysh said, so when she got her job at the FBK six years ago, her family supported her. "Kira Yarmysh is one of the brightest stars in Navalny's team. She is emerging to be even bigger but still stay in Navalny's shadow," Echo of Moscow Deputy Chief Editor Olga Bychkova told The Daily Beast. Yarmysh says that if she has to she will wait for her boyfriend for 12 months, as do millions of other Russian girls all over the country. "I hope this is going to be just one year," she says. For two months, Yarmysh has been worried, feeling "hurt," she says, wondering why out of all Russia's vast military bases, her boyfriend was isolated in the Arctic. "The authorities might think that Ruslan and I, if we come out to a street protest, might lead masses of people," Yarmysh said, then added: "I personally have no fear. If they raid our homes, if they detain us, I tell myself, we must be doing everything right." But for the moment that is, at best, cold comfort.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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| Greyhound will stop allowing immigration checks on buses Posted: 23 Feb 2020 10:54 AM PST  Greyhound, the U.S.'s largest bus company, said on Friday that it will stop allowing Border Patrol agents without a warrant to board its buses to conduct routine immigration checks.
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| Virus 'peaked' in China but could trigger global pandemic: WHO Posted: 24 Feb 2020 09:16 AM PST  The World Health Organization on Monday said the new coronavirus epidemic had "peaked" in China but warned that a surge in cases elsewhere was "deeply concerning" and all countries should prepare for a "potential pandemic". "This virus can be contained," he told reporters in Geneva, praising China for helping to prevent an even bigger spread of the disease through unprecedented lockdowns and quarantines in or near the outbreak's epicentre. Italy has locked down 11 towns and South Korea ordered the entire 2.5 million residents of the city of Daegu to remain indoors.
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| 'Truly shameful': Pro-Israel AIPAC slams Sanders after he says conference is platform for 'bigotry' Posted: 24 Feb 2020 09:44 AM PST  Sen. Bernie Sanders drew the ire of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee after he announced he would not attend the group's annual conference.
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| Pope appears to disapprove of Trump's Mideast peace plan Posted: 23 Feb 2020 07:07 AM PST  Pope Francis on Sunday warned against "inequitable solutions" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying they would only spark new crises, in an apparent reference to President Trump's Middle East peace proposal.
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| China said it would relax its lockdown of Wuhan's 11 million residents, only to immediately reintroduce it Posted: 24 Feb 2020 03:25 AM PST  Wuhan announced that some people could leave the locked-down city, only to reverse the announcement hours later as the coronavirus spreads.
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| A U.S. Woman Who Traveled on the Westerdam Cruise Ship Does Not Have Coronavirus After All, CDC Says Posted: 24 Feb 2020 09:38 AM PST  The CDC confirmed an American woman who traveled on the Westerdam cruise ship does not have COVID-19. Her diagnosis was a false positive.
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| Bloomberg Killed the Best Chance at Justice for the 9/11 Attacks Posted: 23 Feb 2020 05:14 PM PST  If it wasn't for Mike Bloomberg, the alleged perpetrators of the worst terrorist attack in American history would likely have been convicted of mass murder by now.According to all the evidence available both at the time and in the nine years since Bloomberg's intervention, a federal court almost certainly would have convicted the five co-defendants. A judge would have had to reckon with the torture the CIA inflicted on them, barring the prosecution from using tainted evidence—and showing, for the record, how torture jeopardized the case. Most importantly, there would have been closure, provided in open court and displaying the inheritance of centuries of jurisprudence, for the atrocity of 9/11 and the brutality America chose when confronting it. All that was why Eric Holder, then the attorney general, announced in November 2009 that the Justice Department would bring criminal charges against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ammar al-Baluchi, Ramzi Binalshibh, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, who—then as now—were detained at Guantanamo Bay. The venue for the trial was to be the federal courthouse in Manhattan, a short walk from the former site of the World Trade Center. It was an even shorter walk to City Hall, where Michael Bloomberg presided as mayor. Bloomberg at first backed trying the 9/11 conspirators in the city. But the NYPD and the big real estate developers central to Bloomberg's vision of New York as a "luxury brand" viewed the trial as a national-security version of a Not-In-My-Backyard concern—all as a broader backlash to Barack Obama's handling of the war on terror was brewing. By January 2010, Bloomberg reversed himself, and his opposition doomed the trial. "I remember the hopes I had that there would be a federal trial, and I remember when Bloomberg and others came together and said it wasn't going to happen," said Terry Rockefeller, whose sister died in the World Trade Center and who apportions blame for the trial's collapse on Holder as well. "It's just been the most frustrating reflection on what we've done as a nation that this many years later we can't have a trial." The episode is less remembered than Bloomberg's defense of racist policing, his accommodation of police Islamophobia, his history of misogyny and his affinity for foreign authoritarians, all of which Bloomberg shares with the occupant of the White House he seeks to dislodge. But it had a devastating effect on the Obama administration's ambitions for emptying the wartime prison in Cuba and proving the merits of civilian courts over military tribunals for what Holder had called the trial of the century. Eighteen years after 9/11, justice for the attack remains locked away in Guantanamo."It's hard to overestimate the damage that Bloomberg's opposition to holding the 9/11 trials in New York federal courts caused," recalled Karen Greenberg, the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University. "The inability to have closure on the 9/11 attacks, which this country is still owed; the lack of trust in the federal criminal justice system; and the perpetuation of Gitmo—it is an incalculable misstep, and it pulled the rug out from under Obama and Holder's conviction that the 9/11 trials needed to be held in federal court on federal soil, just as [international terrorism cases] had always been prior to 9/11."Joseph Marguiles, attorney for Abu Zubaydah, another Guantanamo detainee tortured by the CIA, said Bloomberg's rejection of the trial showed the same "fear-mongering and bone-headedness" as his embrace of stop-and-frisk. "It's all of a piece: a mindless, reflexive cowardice," Marguiles said. Representatives for Bloomberg's campaign did not respond to messages seeking comment. Holder, through a spokesperson, declined comment. So did Holder's national security adviser at the time, Amy Jeffress. Barack Obama came into office pledging to close Guantanamo Bay, but quickly alienated civil libertarians by his parsimonious definitions of what closure meant. Rather than forsake military detention away from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama sought to replicate it at an Illinois prison that critics derided as "Gitmo North." By the spring of his first year in office, he proclaimed himself open to indefinite military detention for the "toughest" cases, even as he pledged he would seek civilian prosecutions for terrorist suspects "whenever feasible."The centerpiece for that feasibility was the 9/11 trial. For years, the 9/11 co-conspirators had languished in unofficial CIA prisons known as black sites where they faced torture so extreme that one of them, Hawsawi, experienced a rectal prolapse. Holder called prosecuting them in federal court the "defining event" of his tenure atop the Justice Department. He had support from important New York politicians. "New York is not afraid of terrorists," boasted Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat representing Manhattan. Bloomberg, at first, joined the chorus. "It is fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered," he said the day of Holder's announcement. Doing so was entirely feasible, he noted, as proven by the federal trial for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Bloomberg said he had spoken to Holder and pledged city support "in any way necessary." He expressed confidence in the NYPD's "experience dealing with high-profile terrorism suspects and any logistical issues that may come up during the trials."But he quickly developed other ideas. By the time the Justice Department announced its intended 9/11 trial, a backlash to Obama was coalescing around the country. One of its focal points was Obama's emphasis on using the criminal justice system for terrorism cases, which the right interpreted as a five-alarm fire. Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP leader, led an early charge warning "how dangerous closing Guantanamo could be." Then, weeks after the Justice Department announcement, FBI agents read a Miranda warning to a Nigerian jihadist named Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab who tried and failed to blow up a civilian airliner as it descended into Detroit. Abdulmutallab extensively cooperated with investigators, but to the right, it crystallized a danger Obama allegedly posed. Rudy Giuliani wailed, "Why in God's name would you stop questioning a terrorist?" The 9/11 trial suddenly had a new, hysterical context. A rally at Foley Square in December, featuring relatives of 9/11 victims, denounced the attorney general. It was organized by a group led by Islamophobic 9/11 widow Debra Burlingame, future Rep. Liz Cheney and neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol, called Keep America Safe—explicitly meaning safe from terrorism and, tacitly, from Obama. Accordingly, the crowd around or passing by Foley Square yelled "traitor" and "lynch Holder!" Then there were more parochial concerns. The NYPD began worrying aloud that the trial would be a logistical snarl, and ratcheted up their estimates of its cost. Commissioner Ray Kelly briefed community officials with intimidating projections about blanketing downtown Manhattan with police checkpoints and intrusive searches. The police weren't the only influential constituency that blanched. The New York Times reported that Bloomberg got "an earful" of opposition to the trial when he attended an annual gathering of the Real Estate Board of New York; its president warned "it would destroy the economy in Lower Manhattan." Jane Mayer of The New Yorker noted that "companies with downtown real-estate interests had been lobbying to stop the trial." The chairwoman of the downtown-Manhattan community board wrote an op-ed opposing having the trial "in the midst of a dense residential and office neighborhood." Bloomberg's Money Won't Right the Wrong of 'Guantanamo-on-Hudson'By early January, weeks after supporting the trial, Bloomberg reneged. In a letter to the White House, Bloomberg asserted a security threat to the trial that he felt no political pressure to explain. Now the trial would cost the city over $200 million annually, largely due to reallocating police officers, who would accrue "significant overtime." Bloomberg, backed by Kelly, expected federal reimbursement—something he insisted would not be a "blank check." Bloomberg was backed by his home-state senator, now-Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, who insisted that "not a nickel of these costs should be borne by New York taxpayers."It happened that there was a test case undercutting Bloomberg's argument in real time. In June 2009, federal prosecutors in New York indicted a different Gitmo detainee, someone whom the CIA also tortured in the black sites. The trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani wasn't on the scale of the 9/11 trial—he was indicted for his role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania—but it featured no security disruption from terrorists, no abnormal police presence, and no economic disaster. Its judge, Lewis Kaplan, refused the government one of its desired witnesses, someone whom Ghailani named during his black-site interrogations. A jury acquitted Ghailani of all but one count of conspiracy, but it was enough to sentence him to life in prison in 2011, a sentence that has survived Ghailani's appeals. His trial took a month. But by then, the 9/11 trial had long been a lost cause. At a press conference on a Wednesday in late January, fueled by a nonbinding community-board vote against the trial, Bloomberg said that his "hope is that the attorney general and the president decide to change their mind" and hold the trial elsewhere. Two days later, Justice Department officials conceded to Times reporters that it was now "obvious" the trial couldn't happen in New York."If these trials were going to take place anywhere, they'd take place in New York, and the mayor of the largest city in the country said they can't handle it. Well, if you can't do it there, you can't do it anywhere," Marguiles said. "It was just nonsense. Of course they could have done it. These cases would have been resolved 10 years ago." That November, before the Justice Department could salvage the prosecutions and indict Mohammed and his co-conspirators elsewhere, the Republicans won control of Congress. Once in office, the new GOP majority spearheaded legislation barring the Pentagon from spending money to move Guantanamo detainees onto mainland American soil, effectively killing any federal criminal indictment of anyone held in the wartime prison, a prohibition that continues to this day. Conceding defeat, the Obama administration in 2012 re-indicted the five co-conspirators in a military commission held at Guantanamo.The death of the 9/11 trial didn't stop Obama from prosecuting terror suspects, something Donald Trump's Justice Department has pursued as well. "It just became impossible to resolve the stain of 9/11 and the reality of Guantanamo," Marguiles observed. "Everything about the show trial taking place down at Gitmo is inferior."Indeed, the 9/11 military tribunal has lasted almost eight years without proceeding to trial. It's been beset by a baroque series of setbacks, including accusations of government spying on the defense attorneys. Its new judge has set a trial date for 2021, some 20 years after 9/11, but that target is, as ever, in doubt. This week, one of Binalshibh's attorneys, James Harrington, sought to remove himself from the case on health grounds. To keep the trial date alive, the prosecution took the extraordinary step of motioning to keep Harrington involved.Like many attorneys—including Holder—Greenberg and Marguiles believe the abundance of evidence about the 9/11 plot obtained outside of torture is sufficient to secure a federal conviction for the accused co-conspirators. As well, Marguiles said the 9/11 trial would have provided a way to "reckon with the legacy of torture." Without a trial, New Yorkers and Americans generally lack the "closure and a narrative" that court cases provide, Greenberg said. "This country continues to live inside the post-9/11 moment," she said, "in a way that didn't need to happen."No one continues to live in that moment more than the thousands of people like Rockefeller, who lost their loved ones on 9/11. "It was a crushing failure of will to actually do the right thing, to try the [accused conspirators] in a federal court," said Rockefeller, who is affiliated with Sept. 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. "That would have been to say that our pride in our rule of law, and our belief in our legal system, is what makes us different from terrorists."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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| Nine of the World’s Most Beautiful Outdoor Saunas Posted: 24 Feb 2020 08:25 AM PST |
| Malaysia in turmoil as Anwar denounces bid to bring down govt Posted: 23 Feb 2020 08:50 PM PST  Malaysian politics was in turmoil Monday after leader-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim denounced a "betrayal" by coalition partners he said were trying to bring down the government, two years after it stormed to victory. Anwar's "Pact of Hope" alliance was thrown into crisis after his rivals within the coalition and opposition politicians met at the weekend reportedly to try to form a new government. Speculation is mounting that Anwar, who had been the presumptive successor to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, and his lawmakers would be left out of any new coalition, ending his hopes of becoming premier any time soon.
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| Moscow's preferred U.S. candidate reportedly isn't Trump or Sanders, but 'chaos' Posted: 23 Feb 2020 09:38 AM PST  If you saw the reports that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was briefed by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia was trying to aid his Democratic presidential campaign, you might have wondered, why exactly, Moscow was targeting him. After all, President Trump is still apparently the candidate the Kremlin hopes wins, and Sanders and Trump certainly have different ideological stances.GQ's Julia Ioffe set out to answer that question, and while she reports that some people think Sanders' non-interventionist foreign policy platform is appealing to Moscow, or that he will be easier for Trump to defeat than other more moderate candidates, she also found that it may be more about optics. "The ideal scenario is to maintain schism and uncertainty in the States till the end," said Gleb Pavlovsky, a Russian political scientist who used to advise Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Our candidate is chaos."Essentially, as described by Ioffe's sources, Moscow is licking its chops over what could be the most extreme U.S. presidential election in quite some time, if not ever, and they want to see the country turn on itself. "All of this infighting, this cannibalism, they create and deepen the crisis of the American system," said Andranik Migranyan, a close friend of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who used to run a Russian government-funded think tank.Migranyan went on to question — perhaps facetiously — whether the U.S. will still exist after 2025. "Your country is hurtling toward the abyss," he said.Of course, it's unclear if that's precisely why the Kremlin seems okay with a Sanders victory — and Migranyan denies Russia is actually meddling — but it's not difficult to imagine Moscow would enjoy an even more hotly contested election than in 2016. Read more at GQ.More stories from theweek.com Elizabeth Warren rose to 2nd place in a new national poll after the Las Vegas debate The real third way in 2020 Bloomberg adviser accuses Warren of 'running interference' for Sanders
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| Wrong-way crash on Interstate 95 in Georgia kills 6 people, including Virginia parents and their 3 children Posted: 23 Feb 2020 04:35 PM PST  Six people, including three children, were killed early Sunday in a head-on crash on Interstate 95, according to the Georgia State Patrol.
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| Thailand prepares tough measures to control spread of virus Posted: 24 Feb 2020 07:06 AM PST  Thai authorities say they are taking steps to wield emergency legal powers to control the spread of the new virus and limit its economic and social impact. Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Monday the National Committee on Communicable Disease has endorsed adding COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, to a list of 13 other dangerous communicable diseases. In emergencies, it would authorize governors, with consent from the committee, to temporarily shut down markets, entertainment facilities, business places, factories, community areas and educational institutions and order a halt to activities judged dangerous.
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| Iran is closing schools, scrambling for hospital places, and spraying disinfectant in the subway as coronavirus deaths and cases spike Posted: 24 Feb 2020 08:25 AM PST  The government said 12 people had died of the novel coronavirus as of Monday, though one official said the number is actually much higher.
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| South Korea becomes biggest coronavirus centre outside China Posted: 23 Feb 2020 10:05 PM PST  South Korea reported 161 more coronavirus cases Monday, taking the nationwide total to 763 and making it the world's largest total outside China. The country has seen a rapid surge in the number of coronavirus cases -- adding more than 700 cases in less than a week -- since a cluster of infections emerged from a religious sect in the southern city of Daegu. Most of the country's cases are connected to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu, including 129 of Monday's confirmations, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.
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| Probe into abuse at America's oldest deaf school finds 'appalling truths' Posted: 23 Feb 2020 08:21 PM PST  Officials apologized for the "inexcusable actions" of staff and faculty members and the "fact that the school did not prevent or stop them."
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| Indian women protest new citizenship laws, joining a global 'fourth wave' feminist movement Posted: 24 Feb 2020 05:47 AM PST  Women are among the strongest opponents of two new laws in India that threaten the citizenship rights of vulnerable groups like Muslims, poor women, oppressed castes and LGBTQ people.The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed in December 2019, fast-tracks Indian citizenship for undocumented refugees from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan – but only those who are non-Muslim. Another law - the National Register of Citizens – will require all residents in India to furnish extensive legal documentation to prove their citizenship as soon as 2021. Critics see the two laws as part of the government's efforts to redefine the meaning of belonging in India and make this constitutionally secular country a Hindu nation. Since Dec. 4, 2019, Indians of all ages, ethnicities and religions have been protesting the new citizenship initiatives in scattered but complementary nationwide demonstrations. The uprisings have persisted through weeks of arrests, beatings and even killings across India by the police.But the most enduring pocket of resistance is an around-the-clock sit-in of hijab-wearing women in a working-class Delhi neighborhood called Shaheen Bagh. Women take chargeSince Dec. 15, 2019, women of all ages – from students to 90-year-old grandmothers – have abandoned their daily duties and braved near-freezing temperatures to block a major highway in the Indian capital. This is a striking act of resistance in a patriarchal country where women – but particularly Muslim women – have historically had their rights denied.The Shaheen Bagh protests are as novel in their methods as they are in their makeup. Protesters are using artwork, book readings, lectures, poetry recitals, songs, interfaith prayers and communal cooking to explain their resistance to citizenship laws that, they say, will discriminate against not just Muslims but also women, who usually don't have state or property papers in their own names. On Jan. 11, women in the Indian city of Kolkata performed a Bengali-language version of a Chilean feminist anthem called "The Rapist is You." This choreographed public flash dance, first staged in Santiago, Chile in November 2019, calls out the police, judiciary and government for violating women's human rights. A dangerous place for womenIndia is the world's most dangerous country for women, according to the Thompson Reuters Foundation. One-third of married women are physically abused. Two-thirds of rapes go unpunished. Gender discrimination is so pervasive that around 1 million female fetuses are aborted each year. In some parts of India, there are 126 men for every 100 women.Indian women have come together in protest before, to speak out against these and other issues. But most prior women's protests were limited in scope and geography. The 2012 brutal gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old Delhi woman – which sparked nationwide protests – was a watershed moment. All at once, the country witnessed the power of women's rage. The current women-led anti-citizenship law demonstrations are even greater in number and power. Beyond Shaheen Bagh, Indian women across caste, religion and ethnicity are putting their bodies and reputations on the line. Female students are intervening to shield fellow students from police violence at campus protests. Actresses from Bollywood, India's film industry, are speaking out against gender violence, too. Women's secular agendaWith their non-violent tactics and inclusive strategy, the Shaheen Bagh women are proving to be effective critics of the government's Hindu-centric agenda. Their leaderless epicenter of resistance raises up national symbols like the Indian flag, the national anthem and the Indian Constitution as reminders that India is secular and plural – a place where people can be both Muslim and Indian. The Shaheen Bagh movement's novel and enduring strategy has triggered activism elsewhere in the country. Thousands of women in the northern Indian city of Lucknow started their own sit-in in late January. Similar "Shaheen Baghs" have sprung up since, in the cities of Patna and even Chennai, which is located 1,500 miles from Delhi. Global women's springIndia's Shaheen Bagh protests form part of a broader global trend in women's movements. Worldwide, female activists are combining attention to women's issues with a wider call for social justice across gender, class and geographic borders. In January 2019 alone, women in nearly 90 countries took to the streets demanding equal pay, reproductive rights and the end of violence. Young women were also at the forefront of the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Sudan, Brazil and Colombia.As I write in my 2017 book, such inclusive activism is the defining characteristic of what's called "fourth wave feminism." There isn't a common definition of the first three feminist waves. In the United States, they generally refer to the early 20th century suffragette movement, the radical women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the more mainstream feminism of the 1990s and early 2000s. Fourth wave feminism appears to be more global. Today's activists fully embrace the idea that women's freedom means little if other groups are still oppressed. With its economic critique, disavowal of caste oppression and solidarity across religious divides, India's Shaheen Bagh sit-in shares attributes with the women's uprisings in Chile, Lebanon, Hong Kong and beyond. The last time women came together in such numbers worldwide was the MeToo movement, a campaign against sexual harassment which emerged on social media in the United States in 2017 and quickly spread across the globe. Shaheen Bagh and similarly far-reaching women's uprisings underway in other countries take MeToo to the next level, moving from a purely feminist agenda to a wider call for social justice. Women protesters want rights – not just for themselves, but human rights for all.[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * India's plan to identify 'illegal immigrants' could get some Muslims declared 'foreign' * India has a sexual assault problem that only women can fixAlka Kurian has been awarded the 2020-2021 Fulbright U.S. Scholar award. She volunteers for Tasveer, a South Asian non-profit dedicated to social change through thought-provoking South Asian films, art and storytelling.
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| Couple who disappeared during California getaway found alive Posted: 22 Feb 2020 03:14 PM PST  A couple who vanished during a getaway in the woods of Northern California was found Saturday by search-and-rescue workers who spent almost a week looking for them.
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| One killed, dozens injured in Delhi clashes as Trump visits Posted: 24 Feb 2020 01:35 AM PST  A policeman was killed and dozens of people injured amid clashes in New Delhi on Monday as thousands demonstrating for and against a new citizenship law rioted for several hours before U.S. President Donald Trump's maiden visit to the city. Police used tear gas and smoke grenades but struggled to disperse the crowds, as both sides hurled stones and turned a wide boulevard into a rock-strewn battle zone, about 11 miles from where Trump will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for talks on Tuesday. An official at Delhi's GTB Hospital said more than 35 people injured in the clashes were undergoing treatment.
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| US accuses Russia of spreading conspiracies about the Wuhan coronavirus, including that it's a CIA biological weapon Posted: 24 Feb 2020 03:32 AM PST  Russia has been spreading coronavirus conspiracies, US officials say.
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| Ira Hayes raised the flag on Iwo Jima. 75 years later, he still inspires this Indian community. Posted: 23 Feb 2020 04:33 PM PST  75 years ago, Ira Hayes was one of the six Marines captured in the historic photograph raising the American flag on Iwo Jima.
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| Carnival in Belgium again has Jewish stereotypes in parade Posted: 23 Feb 2020 08:32 AM PST |
| Italy quarantines towns, cancels Venice's Carnival amid surprise coronavirus outbreak Posted: 24 Feb 2020 03:22 AM PST  Italy jumped from three reported cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus last week to four deaths at least 190 people testing positive in the northern part of the country by Monday. In response, Italy quarantined a dozen towns and sent masked police officers to guard checkpoints, canceled soccer matches and closed schools, scrapped the final day of Milan Fashion Week, and called off Venice's Carnivale, its famed annual pre-Lenten masked bacchanalia. At the same time, Italian authorities pleaded for calm, noting that the virus has a lower mortality rate than the flu and that all four people who died were elderly.Italy instituted strict travel bans and airport screenings on Jan. 31, and authorities still haven't located the source of the sudden outbreak. Austria has temporarily suspended cross-border travel with Italy and other European countries are considering similar actions.South Korea and Iran also have rising numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths, raising concerns about global spread of the virus, which started in Wuhan, China. South Korea, with 833 confirmed cases and seven deaths, has the highest number of infections outside China. Iran state media has reported 12 deaths from the coronavirus, though the death toll in the holy city of Qom is said to have hit 50.Fears about the global economic impact of the coronavirus helped send stock markets sharply lower on Monday, with European indices leading the declines.More stories from theweek.com Elizabeth Warren rose to 2nd place in a new national poll after the Las Vegas debate The real third way in 2020 Bloomberg adviser accuses Warren of 'running interference' for Sanders
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| WHO warns coronavirus may be 'around for months' Posted: 24 Feb 2020 07:21 AM PST  The World Health Organization warned Monday that the new coronavirus might be around for months but said the measures China implemented have prevented the infections of hundreds of thousands of people. Bruce Aylward, leader of a joint WHO-China mission of experts, said the world can learn from the nation's approach to restraining the virus. "We have outbreaks in multiple countries right now, increasing at exponential growth rates," he said.
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| Will China Rule 5G Wireless? Can America or Europe Do Anything About It? Posted: 24 Feb 2020 12:00 AM PST  Big things happened at the Munich Security Conference.
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| Marianne Williamson endorses Bernie Sanders after calling Pete Buttigieg a ‘corporate tool’ Posted: 24 Feb 2020 02:57 AM PST  Former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has endorsed frontrunner Bernie Sanders – having previously taken a swipe at one of his rivals, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg.Speaking at a Sanders rally in Austin, Texas, Ms Williamson drove home that she sees today's fight for progressive causes as part of a grand American tradition.
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| Iran’s Election Turns Back the Clock on Reconciliation With West Posted: 23 Feb 2020 02:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- The victory by hard-liners in Iran's election puts parliament back in the hands of people determined to turn the clock back on reconciliation with the West. Expect a retreat from commitments to the hollowed-out nuclear deal as the Islamic Republic's economy bleeds from President Donald Trump's sanctions onslaught."The results that we're seeing in the parliamentary elections are basically a manifestation of what's been going on since early summer last year, when Iran started its more confrontational foreign policy approach," said Adnan Tabatabai, Iran analyst and co-founder of the Bonn-based Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient. "It makes things much more difficult for safeguarding the nuclear agreement."At the same time, because conservatives now have such a strong representation in government, "talks with Washington will be a function of a strategic calculus, not a balance of domestic power,"said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group consultancy. That means engagement will be tougher, but isn't necessarily doomed, he said.Conservative factions loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and wedded to the theocratic ideals of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution prevailed in Friday's vote. It was a repudiation of the policies of President Hassan Rouhani, who eased Iran's long-running standoff with global powers but was unable to build a new era of prosperity at home because of crippling U.S. sanctions.With sentiment against the 2015 nuclear deal and the West running high, especially after the U.S. killed a top Iranian general in a drone strike in January, the powerful Guardian Council was freed to disqualify most moderates and centrists from running in the election. The disqualifications, along with a reported surge in coronavirus cases in Iran this week, saw turnout fall to record low 42.5% and handed Khamenei a pliant legislature.After four years of a moderate president and parliament, arch-conservatives now control most branches of the state for the first time since the end of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency in 2013.While the fierce infighting that characterized Rouhani's tenure is likely to ease, it will come at the cost of public support for a political system already faced with outbreaks of dissent and unrest. And the parliamentary election comes ahead ahead a vote next year for a new president.The increased representation of former security figures in parliament -- including from the powerful Islamic Republic Guard Corps -- may diminish tolerance for discussions around civil society, social liberties and media freedom. Still, Tabatabai said the new lawmakers aren't necessarily monolithic in their thinking, and include reform-minded elements as well.Friday's election was tilted in the conservatives' favor months before grievances against the government erupted into four days of protests that unleashed the fiercest crackdown since the 1979 revolution. More than 300 people were killed in the demonstrations, according to human rights groups' estimates.Iran's Bid to Integrate With Global Economy Coming to an EndKhamenei, who has accused European signatories to the nuclear accord of joining forces with the U.S. against Iran (Trump withdrew the U.S. from the pact in 2018), has called for a pivot to a "resistance economy." His plan would depend less on imported goods while relying on China and Russia for investment and technology transfers. Sanctions, however, are only part of the problem in an economy where productivity is low and the private sector is weak.The new legislature will "have to deal with the same problems of the current parliament, which are economic and socioeconomic problems of ordinary people, and they will also have to offer solutions to that," Tabatabai said.Iran's economic policy may steer away from Europe entirely, after it failed to find a way to skirt the American sanctions and allow crucial Iranian oil exports to flow. A more concerted effort to broaden and deepen trade ties with China and Russia could follow. The Guard, already a major contractor and builder, is likely to be awarded further domestic infrastructure projects as sanctions have killed most avenues to foreign direct investment.Pompeo Calls on Iran to Abide by Financial Action Task ForceGiven the more conservative legislature, Rouhani may struggle to ratify any key legislation during his final year in office, including efforts to bring Iran's banks within international anti-terrorism financing standards. Ongoing attempts to impeach some key ministers, including Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, are also likely to escalate.In a timely reminder of how hard-liners can influence economic policy, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force announced on Friday that Iran's banking system will be returned to its so-called black list of countries after failing to ratify legislation required to bring the sector in line with counter-terrorism financing and anti-money-laundering standards.Hardliners have for several years stalled the pro-FATF legislation that Rouhani promoted.For all the stumbling blocks, Iran may not snap shut its doors to the West entirely, said Vaez from the International Crisis Group."If past is prelude, engagement with Iran's hardliners is much harder for the West," Vaez said. "The new parliament is bound to adopt a much more militant approach to foreign and nuclear policies. But at the end of the day, the deep state in Iran is likely to still calculate pragmatically to ensure self-preservation."\--With assistance from Amy Teibel.To contact the reporter on this story: Golnar Motevalli in London at gmotevalli@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Ros KrasnyFor 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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| A WeWork exec who was Rebekah Neumann's cousin regularly ran up huge expense reports before other execs ganged up and forced him out Posted: 23 Feb 2020 06:56 AM PST  His receipts, per records viewed by Business Insider, offers a window into a wild lifestyle enabled by WeWork money.
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