| Joe Biden wins Michigan, further knocking Bernie Sanders off course Posted: 10 Mar 2020 06:07 PM PDT  Former Vice President Joe Biden is projected to win Michigan's primary election according to early exit polling, further cutting into Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders's path to nomination.
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| In coronavirus crisis, Trump's stock market advice keeps looking worse Posted: 09 Mar 2020 02:36 PM PDT  Almost forgotten in the rush of doom-and-gloom headlines about the spread of coronavirus and Monday's record-breaking stock market sell-off is President Trump's two-week old advice to would be investors to buy stocks.
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| US border officer charged with smuggling 17 kilos of cocaine Posted: 10 Mar 2020 01:03 PM PDT |
| A Seattle lab uncovered Washington's coronavirus outbreak only after defying federal regulators Posted: 10 Mar 2020 10:36 PM PDT  A lack of test kits for the new COVID-19 coronavirus is still obscuring the extent of the outbreak in the U.S., but for a critical period in February, there were no functional federal tests and "local officials across the country were left to work blindly as the crisis grew undetected and exponentially," The New York Times reports. The coronavirus has now infected more than 1,000 people in 36 states and Washington, D.C., according to Johns Hopkins University's count.The first U.S. outbreak was in Washington state, where authorities confirmed the first patient — suffering from respiratory problems after visiting Wuhan, China — only after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made an exception to strict testing criteria. In Seattle, Dr. Helen Chu, an infectious disease expert who was part of an ongoing flu-monitoring effort, the Seattle Flu Study, asked permission to test their trove of collected flu swabs for coronavirus.State health officials joined Chu in asking the CDC and Food and Drug Administration to waive privacy rules and allow clinical tests in a research lab, citing the threat of significant loss of life. The CDC and FDA said no. "We felt like we were sitting, waiting for the pandemic to emerge," Chu told the Times. "We could help. We couldn't do anything."They held off for a couple of weeks, but on Feb. 25, Chu and her colleagues "began performing coronavirus tests, without government approval," the Times reports. They found a positive case pretty quickly, and after discussing the ethics, they told state health officials, who confirmed the next day that a teenager who hadn't traveled abroad had COVID-19 — and the virus had likely been spreading undetected throughout the Seattle area for weeks. Later that day, the CDC and FDA told Chu and her colleagues to stop testing, then partially relented, and the lab found several more cases. On Monday night, they were ordered to stop testing again."In the days since the teenager's test, the Seattle region has spun into crisis, with dozens of people testing positive and at least 22 dying," the Times notes. "The scientists said they believe that they will find evidence that the virus was infecting people even earlier, and that they could have alerted authorities sooner if they had been allowed to test." Read more about the red tape at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com Nancy Pelosi has 'Trump over a barrel' when it comes to potential coronavirus bill Trump's former pandemic adviser: 'We are 10 days from our hospitals getting creamed' Trump reportedly won't meet with Pelosi on a coronavirus bill, or for any reason, because he's mad at her
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| Coronavirus: Sinister people are knocking on doors claiming to be part of official disease response, police warn Posted: 10 Mar 2020 10:11 AM PDT  Scammers are knocking on people's doors and claiming to be part of the official response to the coronavirus, police in New Jersey have warned.The people could then try and take advantage of anxiety around the spread of the disease to sell products at inflated price or otherwise try and scam anyone in the house, authorities warned.
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| Beijing orders quarantine for all international arrivals Posted: 11 Mar 2020 03:14 AM PDT  Beijing on Wednesday ordered people arriving in the city from any country to go into 14-day quarantine as China reported an increase in imported coronavirus cases, threatening its progress against the epidemic. China has made major strides in its battle against the virus, prompting President Xi Jinping to visit Wuhan, the central city at the heart of the global epidemic, on Tuesday and declare that it has "basically curbed" the spread of the disease. People arriving in Beijing for business trips must stay in a designated hotel and undergo a nucleic acid test for the virus, he added.
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| Get the Look of Dakota Johnson's Cozy L.A. Home Posted: 11 Mar 2020 05:00 AM PDT |
| 'I barely kept from crying': Schools and universities throw students into panic after telling them to leave campus and take classes online amid coronavirus fears Posted: 10 Mar 2020 07:25 PM PDT  Students are being kicked off-campus housing, sparking logistical nightmares to find housing and wifi to take virtual courses.
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| 'You're full of s***': Joe Biden gets in heated gun control debate with Detroit plant worker Posted: 10 Mar 2020 08:09 PM PDT  The worker, among a group surrounding Biden at the Fiat Chrysler plant, accused Biden of "actively trying to end our Second Amendment right."
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| Pakistan fighter jet crashes in capital during parade rehearsal Posted: 11 Mar 2020 04:31 AM PDT  A Pakistani F-16 fighter jet crashed in Islamabad Wednesday, killing the pilot, during a rehearsal for a national day military parade, officials said. Footage on social media showed a plume of smoke billowing into the sky after the plane hit the ground having apparently attempted a loop. A Pakistani Air Force spokesman said the pilot, Wing Commander Nauman Akram, died in the crash.
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| Israeli court rejects Netanyahu request to delay trial Posted: 10 Mar 2020 06:07 AM PDT  An Israeli court on Tuesday rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's request to delay the start of his corruption trial, clearing the way for proceedings to begin as planned next week. Netanyahu's lawyers had appealed for a delay, saying they needed more time to review evidence. In overruling the request the presiding judge wrote that the first session on March 17 was a procedural reading of the charges only and the defendant's response was not needed, therefore there was no justification for a delay.
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| Dr. Fauci Schools Hannity on Dangers of Coronavirus Posted: 10 Mar 2020 07:59 PM PDT  Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top expert on infectious diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, set Fox News host Sean Hannity straight Tuesday night on the dangers the novel coronavirus outbreak presented to the United States, pointedly telling him that the virus is much more lethal than the seasonal flu.Fauci, who earlier in the day starkly informed the public that "we can't be doing the kinds of things we were doing a few months ago," appeared on Hannity to discuss what still needs to be done to mitigate the outbreak.Hannity, who is sometimes referred to as the White House shadow chief of staff, spent the majority of the interview praising President Donald Trump's coronavirus response and setting up Fauci to do the same. After Fauci applauded Trump for banning travel with China early on in the outbreak, calling it the "right move," Hannity—who has repeatedly downplayed the dangers of the virus—asked the doctor "one more very important question."Fox News Catches Kellyanne Conway Lying for Trump About Cutting Entitlements"So the average age mortality for 'corona' is 80," the Fox host said. "So this virus is impacting people with compromised immune systems, underlying other medical conditions are the most vulnerable. What about the other 99 percent? If people got the virus, worst-case scenario, how dangerous is it to them, compared maybe to the regular flu?"Fauci responded that while 80 percent of those infected would get only mildly sick and quickly recover, roughly 15 percent "will get into trouble," and the mortality rate in that group is "very high.""But Sean, to make sure your viewers get an accurate idea about what goes on, you mentioned seasonal flu," he continued. "The mortality for seasonal flu is 0.1 [percent]. The mortality for this is about two, two-and-a-half percent. It's probably lower than that, it's probably closer to one. But even if it's one, it's 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu. You gotta make sure that people understand that!"Somewhat flustered, Hannity sputtered "no, no, no, no" before eventually asking Fauci if the task force has done everything possible to this point.Last week, Hannity hosted Dr. Marc Siegel—a member of Fox News' "Medical A-Team"—to claim that the "worst-case scenario" for the new coronavirus is that "it could be the flu." This came days after Trump himself appeared on Hannity's show and invented a coronavirus mortality rate based on his "hunch." Hannity has repeatedly contrasted the COVID-19 outbreak to the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, criticizing the Obama administration's response while noting that 12,000 Americans eventually died from the swine flu. H1N1, however, was an extremely prevalent form of the flu that infected one in five people worldwide during that pandemic and had a death rate of 0.02 percent.'Pandumbic': 'Daily Show' Gives Trump the Disaster Movie TreatmentRead 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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| Taiwan protests as top U.S. university labels island part of China on virus map Posted: 10 Mar 2020 11:39 PM PDT |
| Analyst who predicted 2008 global financial crash warns another one is on the way — and not just because of coronavirus Posted: 10 Mar 2020 04:11 PM PDT  An analyst who predicted the 2008 global financial crisis has warned that another crash is on the way, and this time it will be much worse.Jesse Colombo, an economic forecaster and columnist who identified a housing and credit bubble in the US prior to the 2008 crash, says a number of new bubbles in markets around the world are set to burst.
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| Sniper Lee Malvo marries while serving life in prison Posted: 10 Mar 2020 02:10 PM PDT  Lee Boyd Malvo, who is serving life in prison for his role in the 2002 sniper spree that terrorized the nation's capital region, is now a married man. Carmeta Albarus, who has served as an adviser and mentor for Malvo since testifying at his 2003 trial, confirmed the wedding took place earlier this month. Malvo, now 35, was 17 when he and John Allen Muhammad embarked on a killing spree in October 2002 that left 10 people dead and three wounded in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
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| Bill Gates says the novel coronavirus is a 'once-in-a-century pathogen.' The Gates Foundation just joined Wellcome and Mastercard in committing $125 million to find new treatments for it. Posted: 10 Mar 2020 07:18 AM PDT  Around the world, nearly 116,000 people have been infected with the novel coronavirus, and 4,000 have died.
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| Olive Garden employee, 16, to file lawsuit after customer requested white server, reports say Posted: 09 Mar 2020 12:19 PM PDT  An Olive Garden customer reportedly requested a white server instead of the server already assigned to the table and the manager complied.
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| Republicans face backlash over racist labeling of coronavirus Posted: 10 Mar 2020 10:02 AM PDT  China says US politicians are stigmatizing the country with 'despicable' practice of calling the virus 'Wuhan coronavirus' and 'China coronavirus' * Follow live updates on the coronavirusSenior Republican figures are facing backlash over an apparent effort to label Covid-19 as "Chinese coronavirus" – as China accused some US politicians of "disrespecting science" in order to "stigmatize" the country.Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, are among those to add a geographical marker to the coronavirus in recent days.Pompeo called the virus the "Wuhan coronavirus" on Friday, referring to the Chinese city where the outbreak started, and McCarthy used the term "Chinese coronavirus" on Monday, when he tweeted out a link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency that has led the US effort to fight the virus.The CDC website specifically avoids the phrase when talking about Covid-19, the novel strain of coronavirus at the heart of the global outbreak.Other Republicans, including Senator Tom Cotton and Representative Paul Gosar – who is in self-quarantine – have used similar terms.China reacted furiously on Monday, with a spokesman for the foreign ministry criticizing US elected officials."Despite the fact that the WHO [World Health Organization] has officially named this novel type of coronavirus, certain American politician[s], disrespecting science and the WHO decision, jumped at the first chance to stigmatize China and Wuhan with it. We condemn this despicable practice," said Geng Shuang.Republicans' attempts to associate Covid-19 overtly with China repeats a common theme of associating epidemics with certain countries, such as 1918 influenza pandemic being branded "Spanish flu".Academics have warned the practice leads to stigma and racism, and the World Health Organization sent a memo to governments and media organizations at the end of February, urging people not to use the terms "Wuhan Virus", "Chinese Virus" or "Asian Virus"."Governments, citizens, media, key influencers and communities have an important role to play in preventing and stopping stigma surrounding people from China and Asia in general," the WHO said.The branding fits neatly with Donald Trump's anti-China rhetoric and ongoing trade war, however – as Democratic congressman Ted Lieu pointed out in a tweet, referring to Trump as Potus, the president of the United States."One reason @POTUS & his enablers failed to contain COVID2019 is due to the myopic focus on China. The virus was also carried into the US from other countries & US travelers. Calling it Chinese coronavirus is scientifically wrong & as stupid as calling it the Italian coronavirus."
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| Candidates who've dropped out of the presidential race are endorsing either Biden or Sanders. Here's whose side they're on and why. Posted: 11 Mar 2020 06:40 AM PDT  Cory Booker and Andrew Yang joined many of their former rivals in endorsing Joe Biden. Bernie Sanders has secured two former candidates.
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| Coronavirus news: Washington preparing for 64,000 cases as Massachusetts becomes latest to declare state of emergency Posted: 10 Mar 2020 01:09 PM PDT  With more than 900 reported cases and a task force created by Donald Trump to prepare the nation, coronavirus fears have begun to grip the United States as schools cancel classes and officials have urged elderly people to avoid large crowds. Coronavirus concerns have also prompted several members of US Congress to self quarantine after coming into contact with people who were infected, and some politicians have begun to indicate they believe the Capitol building should be shut off to visitors until the growing outbreak has been contained.So far, 30 people have been killed by the virus, including at least 24 in Washington, two in California and another two in Florida. Eight people have so-far recovered from the virus, which has sparked a rare national lock down in Italy. The rapid increase of coronavirus cases in the US and across the world encouraged one expert to compare the numbers to Italy, which has seen more than 9,100 cases. The expert anticipates America's epidemic could look like Italy's in nine to 14 days. The spread of the coronavirus got worse in Italy on Tuesday, with the state revealing the death toll has risen by 168 people in just 24 hours. It made for the largest single day jump and 631 people have died from the virus to date.
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| Turkey says U.S. offering Patriot missiles if Russia's S-400 not operated Posted: 10 Mar 2020 03:06 PM PDT  The United States has offered to sell Turkey its Patriot missile defense system if Ankara promises not to operate a rival Russian system, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, in what he called a significant softening in Washington's position.
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| South Korea reports jump in coronavirus cases after call center outbreak Posted: 10 Mar 2020 06:25 PM PDT  South Korea reported a jump in new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, reversing 11 days of slowing infections, as authorities tested hundreds of staff at a Seoul call center where the disease broke out this week. Another 242 new cases were reported, compared with 35 a day earlier, bringing the total to 7,755 in Asia's worst outbreak outside mainland China, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said. The daily tally of new cases in South Korea peaked at 909 on Feb. 29, as authorities tested about 200,000 followers of a fringe Christian church at the center of the nation's epidemic.
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| China slams US for warship sail-by in disputed waters Posted: 11 Mar 2020 03:43 AM PDT  Beijing on Wednesday accused the United States of a "provocative" act by sending a warship into disputed territorial waters in the South China Sea. The Paracel Islands are a chain of disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea, claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam. "Under the guise of 'freedom of navigation', the US has repeatedly flexed its muscles, been provocative and stirred up trouble in the South China Sea," PLA Southern Theatre Command spokesman Colonel Li Huamin said.
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| Inmate reported as escaping did not flee prison Posted: 10 Mar 2020 06:06 AM PDT  A convicted murderer did not escape from an Alabama prison despite the corrections system initially reporting that he did, state officials said Tuesday. The Alabama Department of Corrections said the inmate reported as escaping in fact never left the prison. An escape notice was sent out as a precautionary matter when the inmate was not at his assigned location at St. Clair Correctional Facility.
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| Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones arrested for DWI Posted: 10 Mar 2020 01:23 AM PDT  The controversial, right-wing conspiracy theorist was booked and charged just after midnight.
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| LIVE UPDATES: Joe Biden wins Michigan Democratic primary, see full results here Posted: 10 Mar 2020 07:30 PM PDT  With 125 pledged delegates at stake, Michigan is the biggest prize out of half a dozen voting contests on March 10.
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| Coronavirus USA cases: Eight states declare state of emergency as number of cases rises sharply Posted: 09 Mar 2020 10:41 AM PDT  Eight states have declared a state of emergency after confirmed coronavirus cases rose to more than 560, and the outbreak has forced schools across the country to close.Oregon became the latest to declare a state of emergency on Sunday. Governor Kate Brown made the decision when the number of coronavirus cases doubled to over 14 in the state.
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| Why Is Italy's Coronavirus Outbreak So Bad? Posted: 10 Mar 2020 11:18 AM PDT  In less than a month, Italy has gone from having only three cases of the coronavirus to having the highest number of cases and deaths outside of China
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| South African court clears Ramaphosa of misleading parliament, money-laundering alleged by graft watchdog Posted: 10 Mar 2020 03:38 AM PDT  South Africa's High Court on Tuesday cleared President Cyril Ramaphosa of lying to parliament about the source of donations to his 2017 campaign to lead the ruling party, setting aside a potentially damaging report by a powerful anti-graft watchdog. The high court judges described the watchdog's approach as based on a mistaken and "fatally flawed" reading of the law. The case was seen by many analysts as a proxy of the bitter power rivalry inside the ANC between supporters of Ramaphosa and his scandal-plagued predecessor Jacob Zuma.
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| The World Health Organization says the threat of a coronavirus pandemic 'has become very real' as global cases surpass 110,000 Posted: 09 Mar 2020 10:36 AM PDT  "It would be the first pandemic in history that could be controlled," the WHO's director-general said. "We are not at the mercy of the virus."
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| Russia reaches out to OPEC as Riyadh opens oil taps Posted: 10 Mar 2020 08:16 AM PDT  Russia said Tuesday it was open to renewing cooperation with the OPEC oil cartel even as kingpin Saudi Arabia escalated a price war with Moscow by announcing it would flood markets with new supplies. The oil price conflict broke out after OPEC and a group of non-member countries dominated by Russia -- the world's second largest oil producer -- on Friday failed to agree on production cuts.
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| Police: Woman won't explain why she threw son from 4th floor Posted: 10 Mar 2020 08:45 AM PDT  Itayvia Lloyd, 33, was being held Tuesday in the Ramsey County jail on probable charges of aggravated assault, malicious punishment of a child and assault of a police officer. Formal charges could be filed Tuesday. Officers found the boy on the ground in the building's courtyard with significant injuries, according to police spokesman Steve Linders.
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| An Australian family accidentally ordered $3,264 worth of toilet paper when they bought 48 boxes instead of 48 rolls Posted: 10 Mar 2020 12:07 PM PDT  Haidee Janetzki of Australia, decided to resell the 2,304 rolls of toilet paper as people panic buy the product during the coronavirus outbreak.
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| Putin to Make Surprise Duma Visit Amid Calls for Him to Stay On Posted: 10 Mar 2020 04:44 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Vladimir Putin is expected to make a surprise address to Russia's lower house of parliament Tuesday after ruling-party lawmakers said they wanted to abolish the constitutional term limit that prevents him continuing to rule as president beyond 2024. Putin will appear before the State Duma after 3 p.m., Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said, the Interfax news service reported. The president's previously unscheduled appearance in the chamber raised speculation that he may be on the verge of abandoning his long-standing opposition to eliminate the restrictions that require him to step down at the end of his current term."Putin needs to be there -- in case something goes wrong" amid global political and economic turbulence, Valentina Tereshkova, a respected lawmaker who was also the first woman in space, told the State Duma in a speech shown on state TV during debates on a constitutional overhaul put forward by the Kremlin. "If the situation requires it and, most importantly, if the people want it, to put in law the possibility for the current president to be re-elected to this position is already in accordance with the updated constitution."The proposal came after an earlier call from another United Russia lawmaker to hold pre-term parliamentary elections once the constitutional changes are passed. The Kremlin's amendments did not include removing term limits or calling early elections, both of which would require changes to the basic law.Putin has previously rejected calls to change the presidential term limit, including as recently as last week, and has not indicated any support for early parliamentary elections. While the fact that both proposals came from prominent members of the ruling party suggests they may have Kremlin support, it may also be that the president is using them as trial balloons that are designed to be rejected when he speaks to lawmakers.The new constitution "gives us more powers so it would be fair to hold new elections," Alexander Karelin of United Russia said as the Duma began debates on the amendments ahead of one of two final votes in the lower chamber. The removal of term limits and early-vote proposal would require constitutional amendments.The Kremlin has set a national ballot to approve the constitutional changes for April 22. Putin has said the plan is aimed at modernizing the basic law and that he plans to observe current term limits, which prevent him from running again. But the overhauls, abruptly announced in January, are widely seen as an effort to create options for Putin to retain control even after he steps down as president. The Kremlin has also added amendments on issues like family and religion aimed at mobilizing public support for a plan that's so far produced limited enthusiasm.The global economic turmoil set off by the spread of coronavirus has added to the Kremlin's challenges, threatening efforts to boost stagnant living standards with a major spending program. A collapse in oil prices after Putin on Friday refused to join deeper crude output cuts with OPEC, sparking a move by Saudi Arabia to ramp up oil supplies, has sharply worsened the outlook for Russia's economy.Support for United Russia is close to a record low after five years of economic stagnation. Maintaining the ruling party's commanding majority is likely to get more difficult if the slowdown persists.\--With assistance from Henry Meyer.To contact the reporters on this story: Andrey Biryukov in Moscow at abiryukov5@bloomberg.net;Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony HalpinFor 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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| US has only tested 5,000 people for coronavirus, CDC director says Posted: 10 Mar 2020 06:00 PM PDT  The director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that only 4,856 coronavirus tests have been run in public health labs.Dr Robert Redfield told a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the number does not include clinical labs or private labs, and was last updated on Monday.
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| Catholic Italy adapts to religion in a time of coronavirus Posted: 10 Mar 2020 06:57 AM PDT  Just about the only thing a person can do in a church in Italy is pray - but at least a pew away from someone else. Overwhelmingly Catholic Italy is adapting to religion in a time of coronavirus after a clampdown across the entire country was imposed to slow Europe's worst outbreak.
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| Norwegian F-35 stealth fighters sent out for the first time to intercept Russian sub hunter aircraft Posted: 10 Mar 2020 10:38 AM PDT  Norway scrambled F-35 stealth fighters over the weekend to intercept a pair of Russian Tu-142 anti-submarine warfare aircraft off its coast.
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| 'DC sniper' Lee Boyd Malvo marries while serving life in prison Posted: 11 Mar 2020 09:10 AM PDT  Lee Boyd Malvo's attorney and his friend said the man convicted in the D.C. sniper attacks when he was a teen married earlier this month in prison.
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| Couple Quarantined on Grand Princess Sue Cruise Line for $1 Million Posted: 10 Mar 2020 08:34 AM PDT  A couple stuck aboard the Grand Princess — where 21 cases of the coronavirus have been diagnosed — is suing the cruise line for $1 million.
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| New poll shows Biden crushing Sanders in battleground states Posted: 09 Mar 2020 11:34 AM PDT  To have any hope of catching up to Joe Biden after the former vice president's dominant performance on Super Tuesday, Bernie Sanders needs to win Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary in Michigan — a state where the Vermont senator upset rival Hillary Clinton in 2016.
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| Democrats Worry Biden Camp Is Unprepared for Coming Disinformation Onslaught Posted: 10 Mar 2020 12:10 PM PDT  For close to four hours this past weekend, a cropped video that appeared to show Joe Biden endorsing Donald Trump gained steam on Twitter before the Biden campaign publicly pushed back. Twitter eventually deemed it misleading, but by the time the post was labeled as such, it had already been viewed millions of times. Though the Biden campaign defended its handling of the video, the episode has nevertheless sparked fears in Democratic circles and beyond about its ability to navigate the fast moving world of online politics, where disinformation can shape conversations before the true version is known."They've got to do something. You can't surrender the ground," said Clint Watts, a research fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. "We already know what the conspiracy is going to be. There's going to be tons of disinformation out there. People tend to believe that which they see first and that which they see the most. If you can't stop them from seeing it, you've got to be out there."The video in question was taken from a rally Biden held in Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday. Posted at 8:18 p.m by Dan Scavino, President Trump's social media adviser, it showed Biden appearing to stumble over his words before settling on: "we can only re-elect Donald Trump." In reality, Biden said nothing of the sort. A fuller video showed him saying "we can only re-elect Donald Trump if in fact we get engaged in this circular firing squad here. It's gotta be a positive campaign, so join us." But for those looking on Twitter, the fuller video was not easy to find. Instead, the cropped version was amplified by Biden's opponents. Trump retweeted it to his 73.5 million followers ("I agree with Joe!") and other Trump-supportive conservatives, as well as some liberal-minded Biden opponents, followed suit. It would take the Biden campaign until just after midnight the next day to push back on the misleading version that Scavino had put out. Not only that, the campaign farmed out some of the fact-checking responsibilities to others. It was the Democratic National Committee that flagged the video to Twitter, the party committee told The Daily Beast, as part of their program to clamp down on the spread of disinformation in 2020. "This is an example of our ongoing disinformation work, and the same thing that we do for every campaign," a DNC official said, adding that they "flag activity to each of the campaigns, and have set them up with tools to receive regular activity alerts themselves."Speaking to The Daily Beast about their disinformation strategy, a Biden campaign adviser said that their more publicly hands-off approach was by design. The campaign, the adviser said, is partially relying on—and working with—reporters to police content that they flag for being inaccurate or misleading, as part of an "earned media" approach towards correcting disinformation. That strategy, according to the campaign, helped lead to Twitter, and eventually Facebook, labeling the video as either "manipulated media" or "partly false information" in what the campaign trumpeted as a first."We and others took action on a fact-checking front in the press and in terms of directly appealing to Twitter," the Biden campaign adviser said. "We lifted content online that showed it was false, from the media and generated by ourselves, in order to help achieve a drumbeat."Indeed, one of the earliest forms of pushback to the video came from Biden's response director, Andrew Bates, who tweeted "why am I not surprised?" at 12:05 a.m. on March 8 in response to a comment from freelance writer Bill Scher about the clip being "disinfo from the Trump campaign." But Watts said their approach is unlikely to be sufficient come November. "I understand the credible messenger thing, but I don't know if it works in this case," he said. "The truth is a credible message. I feel like you've got to knock a lot of those things down. I think it's a capability they need to have other than just hoping journalists catch it."And other Democratic operatives who worked on opposing campaigns in the presidential primary said they were disheartened by how slow Biden's operation moved to clear away any ambiguity that the cropped video may have raised. "You should respond quickly," said a senior communications official on a former campaign. "It isn't rocket science!" Another former senior communications aide added that if they faced a similar type of attack from the Trump campaign, they would have "responded to that within 15 minutes."* * *Problems like these are not a new phenomenon when it comes to campaigns. Rumor, innuendo, and smear are as old as politics itself and have proven effective at swaying elections. In 2004, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) had his war credentials questioned so effectively that an entire genre was named after the character assassination. Every Democratic candidate since has pledged not to be "swift-boated." And each has set up war rooms and websites meant to push back against such attacks in real time. What has posed problems, in recent cycles, is not just the speed with which disinformation has traveled but the ability for people to spread it without ever revealing who they are. "I am less worried about things they are tweeting out because everyone can go and dunk on them," said Zac Petkanas, a senior campaign adviser who ran Hillary Clinton's rapid response effort four years ago. "It's stuff that's going to be pushed out with no fingerprints that's more concerning. That's the stuff that has real consequences."Biden's team has certainly had time to prepare. During the height of the Senate impeachment trial, when the former vice president's son Hunter was being targeted by Trump on a daily basis, they did not set up a war room to counter the smears. Instead, as The Daily Beast previously reported, they relied on existing infrastructure that they had used throughout the campaign to push back. The attention dipped after then, with Biden fading in the polls. But his campaign resurrection has brought with it both a heightened amount of scrutiny and a new barrage of interest from Trump and his allies. And it's raised questions about whether Biden, his team, and the Democratic Party writ large need to rethink their approach. "There's a larger question about whether we are prepared to deal with the onslaught of disinformation and misinformation," said Petkanas. "The answer to that is unequivocally no, we are not."Academics say there's little clarity for campaigns on best practices to deal with these efforts. David Rand, an expert on misinformation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said there's not a clear answer on when rebuttal is effective versus when it's amplifying."It doesn't seem crazy to me to say, wait till it starts taking off because a correction is unlikely to really like nip in the bud," Rand said. "In that a lot of people that are sharing it are sharing it because they think it's funny or because they don't like Biden or whatever, and not because they necessarily think it's true. In that, I'm sure that there's a lot of people, certainly people that are either pro-Trump or pro-Bernie that would strategically share it, even after knowing that it wasn't true."Saturday's situation was more of the low stakes variety, said Leticia Bode, a professor at Georgetown University focusing on misinformation, and there is a danger for campaigns to get bogged down in dealing with it. "I think it really depends on the piece of misinformation," Bode said. "...I don't think that this is going to change the election, right? I don't think anyone is not voting for Biden because of this clip. I don't think anybody is voting for Trump because of this clip. So because it is so low stakes, I think that the campaign doesn't want to get bogged down in continuing this news cycle." Still, the efforts have been ongoing and are likely to ramp up as the general election nears. When Biden launched his presidential bid nearly a year ago, the president indicated "it will be nasty," adding, "I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign." Contemplating what's at stake for Democrats, Biden campaign's approach to Saturday was "poor form," said Phil Cowdell, president of the consulting division at The Soufan Group who specializes in the weaponization of information."In my belief you have to take control of your own destiny and you have to have your own scenarios and defense planned," he said. "...You can't rely on a third party to take care of business.""If they're not ready now and they can't deal with something as sort of simple as a Scavino tweeting something with a selective edit," Cowdell added. "I think they're going to be very vulnerable to the escalation level of attacks that we're anticipating." 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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| The 'London Patient,' Cured of HIV, Reveals His Identity Posted: 09 Mar 2020 11:46 AM PDT  A year after the "London Patient" was introduced to the world as only the second person to be cured of HIV, he is stepping out of the shadows to reveal his identity: He is Adam Castillejo.Six feet tall and sturdy, with long, dark hair and an easy smile, Castillejo, 40, exudes good health and cheer. But his journey to the cure has been arduous and agonizing, involving nearly a decade of grueling treatments and moments of pure despair. He wrestled with whether and when to go public, given the attention and scrutiny that might follow. Ultimately, he said, he realized that his story carried a powerful message of optimism."This is a unique position to be in, a unique and very humbling position," he said. "I want to be an ambassador of hope."Last March, scientists announced that Castillejo, then identified only as the "London Patient," had been cured of HIV after receiving a bone-marrow transplant for his lymphoma. The donor carried a mutation that impeded the ability of HIV to enter cells, so the transplant essentially replaced Castillejo's immune system with one resistant to the virus. The approach, though effective in his case, was intended to cure his cancer and is not a practical option for the widespread curing of HIV because of the risks involved.Only one other individual with HIV -- Timothy Ray Brown, the so-called Berlin Patient, in 2008 -- has been successfully cured, and there have been many failed attempts. In fact, Castillejo's doctors could not be sure last spring that he was truly rid of HIV, and they tiptoed around the word "cure," instead referring to it as a "remission."Still, the news grabbed the world's attention, even that of President Donald Trump.And by confirming that a cure is possible, it galvanized researchers."It's really important that it wasn't a one-off; it wasn't a fluke," said Richard Jefferys, a director at Treatment Action Group, an advocacy organization. "That's been an important step for the field."For Castillejo, the experience was surreal. He watched as millions of people reacted to the news of his cure and speculated about his identity. "I was watching TV, and it's, like, 'OK, they're talking about me,' " he said. "It was very strange, a very weird place to be." But he remained resolute in his decision to remain private until a few weeks ago.For one, his doctors are more certain now that he is virus-free. "We think this is a cure now because it's been another year, and we've done a few more tests," said his virologist, Dr. Ravindra Gupta of the University of Cambridge.Castillejo also tested his own readiness in small ways. He set up a separate email address and telephone number for his life as "LP," as he refers to himself, and opened a Twitter account. He began talking weekly with Brown, the only other person who could truly understand what he had been through. In December, Castillejo prepared a statement to be read aloud by a producer on BBC Radio 4.After talking through his decision with his doctors, friends and mother, he decided the time was right to tell his story."I don't want people to think, 'Oh, you've been chosen,' " he said. "No, it just happened. I was in the right place, probably at the right time, when it happened."Castillejo grew up in Caracas, Venezuela. His father was of Spanish and Dutch descent -- which later turned out to be crucial -- and served as a pilot for an ecotourism company. Castillejo speaks reverently of his father, who died 20 years ago, and bears a strong resemblance to him. But his parents divorced when he was young, so he was primarily raised by his industrious mother, who now lives in London with him. "She taught me to be the best I could be, no matter what," he said.As a young man, Castillejo made his way first to Copenhagen and then to London in 2002. He was found to have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in 2003."I do recall when the person told me and the panic set in," he said. At the time, an HIV diagnosis was often seen as a death sentence, and Castillejo was only 23. "It was a very terrifying and traumatic experience to go through."With the support of his partner at the time, Castillejo persevered. He turned the passion for cooking he had inherited from his grandmother into a job as a sous chef at a fashionable fusion restaurant. He adopted an unfailingly healthy lifestyle: He ate well, exercised often, went cycling, running and swimming.Then, in 2011, came the second blow. Castillejo was in New York City, visiting friends and brunching on the Upper East Side, when a nurse from the clinic where he went for regular checkups called him. "Where are you?" she asked. When Castillejo told her, she would say only that they had some concerns about his health and that he should come in for more tests when he returned to London.He had been experiencing fevers, and the tests showed that they were the result of a Stage 4 lymphoma. "I will never forget my reaction as once again my world changed forever," he said. "Once again, another death sentence."Years of harsh chemotherapy followed. Castillejo's HIV status complicated matters. Each time his oncologists adjusted his cancer treatment, the infectious-disease doctors had to recalibrate his HIV medications, said Dr. Simon Edwards, who acted as a liaison between the two teams.There is little information about how to treat people with both diseases, and HIV-positive people are not allowed to enter clinical trials. So with each new chemotherapy combination, Castillejo's doctors were venturing further into unchartered territory, Edwards said.With each treatment that seemed to work and then didn't, Castillejo fell into a deeper low. He saw fellow patients at the clinic die and others get better, while he kept returning, his body weakening with each round."I was struggling mentally," he said. "I try to look at the bright side, but the brightness was fading."In late 2014, the extreme physical and emotional toll of the past few years caught up to Castillejo, and two weeks before that Christmas he disappeared. His friends and family imagined the worst and filed a missing person's report. Castillejo turned up four days later outside London, with no memory of how he had ended up there or what he had done in the interim. He described it as "switching off" from his life.Around that same time, he said, he felt so defeated that he also contemplated going to Dignitas, the Swiss company that helps terminally ill people take their own lives: "I felt powerless. I needed control, to end my life on my own terms." He made it through that dark period and emerged with a determination to spend whatever was left of his life fighting.Still, in the spring of 2015, his doctors told him he would not live to see Christmas. A bone-marrow transplant from a donor is sometimes offered to people with lymphoma who have exhausted their other options, but Castillejo's doctors did not have the expertise to try that, especially for someone with HIV.His close friend, Peter, was not ready to give up, and together they searched online for alternatives. (Peter declined to reveal his last name because of privacy concerns.) They discovered that at a hospital in London was Dr. Ian Gabriel, an expert in bone-marrow transplants for treating cancer, including in people with HIV. Because of their last-ditch effort, Castillejo said, "We're here today. You never, never know."Within a week, he met with Gabriel, who tried a third and final time to tap Castillejo's own stem cells for a transplant. When that failed, Gabriel explained that Castillejo's Latin background might complicate the search for a bone-marrow donor who matched the genetic profile of his immune system. To everyone's surprise, however, Castillejo quickly matched with several donors, including a German one -- perhaps a legacy from his half-Dutch father -- who carried a crucial mutation called delta 32 that hinders HIV infection. A transplant from this donor offered the tantalizing possibility of curing both Castillejo's cancer and the HIV.When Gabriel called with the news in the fall of 2015, Castillejo was on the top deck of one of London's iconic red buses, on his way to see his general practitioner for a checkup. His thoughts raced alongside the scenery: He had only recently been told he was going to die, and now he was being told he might be cured of both cancer and HIV."I was trying to digest what just happened," he recalled. "But after that call, I had a big smile on my face. That's where the journey began as LP."With the possibility of an HIV cure, the case immediately took on intense importance for everyone involved. Edwards, who had cared for Castillejo since 2012, had, as a young doctor in the early 1990s, seen many men his age die of HIV. "What a privilege it would be to go from no therapy to a complete cure in my lifetime," he recalled telling Castillejo. "So you have to get better -- no pressure."Edwards involved Gupta, his former colleague and one of the few virologists in London he knew to be doing HIV research. Gupta initially was skeptical; the approach had worked only once, 12 years earlier, with Brown. But Gupta also knew that the payoff could be huge. Antiretroviral drugs can suppress the virus to undetectable levels, but any interruption in the treatment can bring the virus roaring back, so a cure for HIV is still the ultimate goal.Gupta began carefully monitoring Castillejo's HIV status. In late 2015, Castillejo was preparing to receive the transplant when another major setback arose. His viral load shot back up with HIV that appeared to be resistant to the drugs he had been taking.This gave Gupta a rare glimpse at the typically suppressed virus and allowed him to confirm that the viral strain was one that would be cleared by the transplant. But it also delayed the transplant by several months while the doctors adjusted Castillejo's medications. He eventually received the transplant May 13, 2016.The next year was punishing. Castillejo spent months in the hospital. He lost nearly 70 pounds, contracted multiple infections and underwent several more operations.He had some hearing loss and began wearing a hearing aid. His doctors fretted over how to get his HIV pills into his ulcer-filled mouth -- by crushing and dissolving them, or by feeding them to him through a tube. "One of the doctors came to me and said to me, 'You must be very special, because I have more than 40 doctors and clinicians discussing your medication,' " Castillejo recalled.Even after he left the hospital, the only exercise he initially was allowed to do was walking, so he walked for hours around the trendy Shoreditch neighborhood. He went to the flower market there every Sunday, treated himself to salted beef "beigels" to celebrate small successes and admired the colorful murals and vintage clothes.A year on, as he became stronger, he slowly began thinking about forgoing the HIV medications to see if he was rid of the virus. He took his last set of antiretroviral drugs in October 2017. Seventeen months later, in March 2019, Gupta announced the news of his cure.Neither he nor Castillejo was prepared for what came next. Gupta found himself presenting the single case to a standing-room-only crowd at a conference and shaking hands afterward with dozens of people. Castillejo was overwhelmed by the nearly 150 media requests to reveal his identity and began to see a role he might play in raising awareness of cancer, bone-marrow transplants and HIV.He has enrolled in several studies to help Gupta and others understand both diseases. So far, his body has shown no evidence of the virus apart from fragments the doctors call "fossils" and what seems to be a long-term biological memory of having once been infected.Others in the HIV community are reassured by this news but expressed concern for Castillejo's privacy and mental health."It can be very important for people to have these kinds of beacons of hope," Jefferys, the Treatment Action Group director, said. "At the same time, that's a lot of weight for someone to carry."Castillejo's friends have similar worries. But he is as ready as he will ever be, he said.He sees LP as his "work" identity and is determined to live his private life to its fullest. Having lost his lustrous dark hair several times over, he has now grown it to shoulder length. He has always enjoyed adventures, and with careful preparation he has begun traveling again, describing himself to fellow travelers only as a cancer survivor. He celebrated his 40th birthday with a trip to Machu Picchu, in Peru.But in conversations about his status as the second person ever to be cured of HIV, Castillejo still adamantly refers to himself as LP, not Adam. "When you call me LP, it calms me down," he said. "LP to my name, that is kind of a big step."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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