| Trump hails Biden's 'great comeback' and dances on Bloomberg's grave Posted: 04 Mar 2020 10:17 AM PST  Speaking to reporters at the White House Wednesday, President Trump offered his blunt assessment of Super Tuesday's Democratic primary results.
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| Ohio 911 call-taker suspended for neglecting to send help to man who died from stroke Posted: 03 Mar 2020 11:55 AM PST  "The actions of this call-taker undermined the possibility of a positive outcome in this situation," City Manager Patrick Duhaney said.
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| South Korea Is Getting An 'Aircraft Carrier' To Compete With China And Japan Posted: 04 Mar 2020 08:00 PM PST  Looking beyond the North Korean threat, South Korea clearly has ambitions to develop a far-sailing "blue-water" navy.
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| Inside the Chris Matthews Exit: MSNBC Boss Went to D.C. to Plead With Him to Quit Posted: 03 Mar 2020 02:30 PM PST  The painful end of Chris Matthews' TV career occurred with just the sort of recrimination and negative PR that former Washington local news anchor and failed Democratic House candidate Kathleen Matthews, his wife of 40 years, and their adult children long hoped to avoid.According to sources at MSNBC, Kathleen had communicated concerns over the past several months to network chief Phil Griffin, Chris's long-ago Hardball executive producer when the show aired on CNBC. She expressed worry that her husband's on-air controversies would become more frequent, more embarrassing, and more damaging to his legacy.For months, it was known to some inside the network that Kathleen had pushed for her husband, now 74, to have a more limited schedule. Instead, the MSNBC anchor found himself on TV during more major events than he had since the 2016 election cycle. And while acting as a fixture of MSNBC's Democratic primary coverage, Matthews continually came under fire for on-air comments including likening Sen. Bernie Sanders' Nevada caucus victory to Nazi Germany overtaking France during World War II, a comment for which Matthews later apologized; and asking Sen. Elizabeth Warren why she would believe a woman over Michael Bloomberg regarding accusations that the ex-mayor told a pregnant employee to "kill" her unborn child.And then, after The Daily Show posted on Thursday night a devastating compilation of Matthews' history of sexist and gross on-air comments to women, and a GQ piece with first-hand accusations of sexual harassment dropped Friday, the network's brass had apparently had enough.Chris Matthews Confronts Warren: Why Do You Believe a Woman Over Bloomberg?Sources said Griffin traveled to Washington, D.C. over the weekend for a series of tough conversations with the Hardball host, his wife and family, arguing that now was the time to call it quits.Matthews was very resistant, according to these sources, insisting he stay on through the election. But he was finally persuaded that "retiring," as he tried to portray his own abrupt resignation, was the only sensible option.Amid such conversations with Griffin, the Hardball host was expected to participate in Saturday's coverage of the South Carolina primary. But hours before he would have gone on the air, he was replaced by weekend host Joy Reid.Ultimately, on Monday evening, when he made his final on-air statement, Matthews' wife and kids were in the studio, sources said."After my conversation with MSNBC, I decided tonight will be my last Hardball," Matthews said during his last broadcast. "So let me tell you why. The younger generations are ready to take the reins. We see them in politics, the media, and fighting for their causes. They're improving the workplace." He offered a brief apology for having previously offered "compliments on a woman's appearance some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were OK."Despite framing his exit as a passing of the torch to a younger generation, Matthews' ouster has been publicly decried by some of his now-ex-colleagues representing the old guard of cable news. The crew of MSNBC's Morning Joe tearfully mourned his exit, with co-host Mika Brzezinski musing about "so-called cancel culture" and whether there could have been a "better way" to deal with Matthews' recent controversies. Senior contributor Mike Barnicle, meanwhile, groused that his friend's departure "opens the door" to "disturbing" possibilities. He asserted that the Hardball host's exit was simply the result of "toxic outrage."Seth Meyers Unloads on Chris Matthews for 'Deranged' Bernie Sanders AttacksMatthews' ouster has also thrown yet another wrench into ongoing uncertainty about MSNBC's lineup, which has been in flux since the network moved daytime host Ali Velshi to a weekend role. Insiders said the network had been expected to announce a new permanent schedule imminently, but Matthews' sudden departure may delay those changes. Star news anchor Shepard Smith, who left Fox News amid feuds with the network's overtly pro-Trump primetime hosts, has long been rumored to be in talks with MSNBC (the network was interested before he decamped Fox News last year), and Page Six reported Tuesday that he is on a "short list" to now take over Hardball. But "expectations are low," a network source said, given Smith's potentially hefty price tag.A person with knowledge of the situation said that any connection between Matthews' departure and Smith's ongoing discussions with the network was "pure speculation." The ex-Fox star is also talking with CNBC and Vice, the source told The Daily Beast: "He's talking to all the players but doesn't necessarily want the big shiny thing." While it has been reported Smith could return to the air as early as June, industry insiders believe he will re-appear closer to the election.Current MSNBC hosts have also been floated as potential replacements for Matthews. Joy Reid, whose weekend show enjoys good ratings, would make sense, insiders said, considering her popularity among the network's more hardcore viewers. Nicolle Wallace, an anti-Trump Republican whose 4 p.m. daytime broadcast has brought in robust viewership, has also been discussed; however, sources said, she'd prefer not to move to primetime because of family obligations. Another name floated by Page Six was Steve Kornacki, who demonstrated quick thinking despite being visibly stunned on Monday evening while taking over the rest of the Hardball broadcast following Matthews' shocking exit. But sources told The Daily Beast that despite his role in stepping up to fill that hour, he's highly unlikely to be rewarded with the primetime hosting gig.—Lachlan Cartwright contributed reporting.MSNBC Host Chris Matthews Resigns After Accusations of Sexism and HarassmentRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| New York confirms two more coronavirus cases, testing kits slow to arrive Posted: 05 Mar 2020 06:50 AM PST  De Blasio said in a string of Twitter posts that neither of the latest patients, a man in his 40s and a woman in her 80s, had a connection "to travel nor any of the other local individuals diagnosed with COVID-19." The new cases bring the total in the state to 13, all in or around New York City. The U.S. death toll from the respiratory disease now stands at 11, all but one them in Washington state, which has a cluster of at least 39 infections in the Seattle area.
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| Pentagon linguist exposed U.S. sources in Iraq, feds say Posted: 04 Mar 2020 09:17 PM PST  Mariam Thompson, 61, of Rochester, Minnesota, made her first appearance in U.S. District Court in Washington.
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| Rand Paul says he'll 'stay here all weekend' to get foreign aid cut included in coronavirus bill Posted: 04 Mar 2020 12:31 PM PST  Congress agreed to put a bipartisan emergency spending package to curb the spread of COVID-19 up for a House vote Wednesday, but it may get held up by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who wants to include an amendment to the bill.Paul, a deficit hawk, wants to ensure the U.S. has some way to fund the COVID-19 package, so he's trying to sneak a foreign aid cut in there. Paul is confident he'll get a vote, but he's prepared to stick around in Washington all weekend either way.> "We will have an amendment to pay for it," Paul told me. "We've talked to the powers that be and let them know...that we'll have an amendment to offset it. If we dont get the amendment, we can stay here all weekend for all I care." Paul says he thinks he'll get a vote, though> > — Trish Turner (@caphilltrish) March 4, 2020Paul is certainly consistent when it comes to spending bills. Over the summer, he was opposed to passing the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund (which also had bipartisan support), arguing that he'll "always take a stand against borrowing more money to pay for programs rather than setting priorities and cutting waste."As for the new coronavirus, Paul said Tuesday thinks there's "room for optimism," noting that he could see it dissipating more quickly than people are portraying.More stories from theweek.com It's 2020 and women are exhausted Could Democrats win the battle against Trump but lose the war against Trumpism? How Bernie blew it
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| Arizona House Passes Ban on Male Participation in Women’s Sports Posted: 04 Mar 2020 09:43 AM PST  The Arizona House passed a bill on Tuesday that would ban the participation of males who identify as female in women's sports programs in the state.After an hours-long debate, the chamber passed the legislation 31-29 along party lines with Republicans in favor. The bill was sponsored by State Representative Nancy Barto (R., Phoenix), who argued that the participation of transgender women in women's sports was unfair to female athletes, especially if sports scholarships for universities are on the line."Shot puts are heavier for boys. Girls' basketballs are smaller. It makes a difference," Barto said during the debate, in comments reported by the Arizona Republic. Later on, Barto said "This is a pro-woman bill. This is a bill to save women's sports because, frankly, it won't be saved if we don't clarify the law."The legislation would require an athlete whose sex was in dispute to establish their sex through a genetic test. Initially the bill required a doctor's sworn statement outlining the athlete's "internal and external reproductive anatomy" and "normal endogenously produced levels of testosterone," in addition to genetic testing.The additional requirements, since dropped, had led Democrats to decry the bill as invasive, with state representative Daniel Hernandez (D., Tuscon) labeling it the "show me your genitals law." The bill will now head to the state senate.In her arguments, Barto also cited a lawsuit brought by three female high school students in Connecticut seeking to ban transgender athletes from women's sports. Each of the students has failed to qualify for various titles and competitions after they were bested by transgender athletes.
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| Joe Biden vs. Bernie Sanders: What's next for the Democratic primary? Posted: 04 Mar 2020 01:56 PM PST  In the weeks prior to the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign for the Democratic nomination seemed to be on life support — but a surprise string of electoral victories have turned the tables. Now, as the primary race heads toward its endgame, the stakes are even higher for Biden and rival Bernie Sanders. Yahoo News Senior Political Correspondent Jon Ward offers a preview of what to watch for in the weeks ahead.
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| Trump calls WHO's global death rate from coronavirus 'a false number' Posted: 05 Mar 2020 06:53 AM PST  'This is just my hunch', president says on Fox News and then plucked his own surmising of a death rate out of the airDonald Trump declared live on television on Wednesday night that he did not believe the World Health Organization's assessment of the global death rate from coronavirus of 3.4%."I think the 3.4% is really a false number," he told Sean Hannity, one of his favorite conservative Fox News hosts, in a phone interview broadcast live."Now, this is just my hunch," Trump began, before continuing that "based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it's very mild – they'll get better very rapidly, they don't even see a doctor, they don't even call a doctor."He went on: "You never hear about those people, so you can't put them down in the category of the overall population, in terms of this corona flu, and/or virus. So you just can't do that."> Trump to Hannity on WHO saying coronavirus death rate is 3.4%: "I think the 3.4% number is really a false number. Now this is just my hunch, but based on a lot of conversations ... personally, I'd say the number is way under 1%." > > Astoundingly irresponsible. pic.twitter.com/uC9c03zX31> > — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2020He then plucked his own surmising of a likely death rate out of the air."You know, all of a sudden it seems like 3 or 4%, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1%," he said, perhaps referring to the typical death rate for influenza, which is below one percent."But again, they don't know about the easy cases because the easy cases don't go to the hospital. They don't report to doctors or the hospital in many cases. So I think that that number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1%," Trump said.As the number of coronavirus cases begins to swell in the United States, conservative media outlets have been dedicating hours of airtime to slamming Democrats and mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times and CNN for being critical of Donald Trump and his response to the coronavirus.For days, Trump's allies in rightwing media have defended the president and his response to coronavirus, supporting the administration's narrative that Democrats are using the coronavirus to further their own political agenda by purposefully exaggerating the severity of coronavirus just to blame Trump for it.Peter Hegseth, a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekends, admonished Democrats' criticism, saying: "They're rooting for the coronavirus to spread. They're rooting for it to grow. They're rooting for the problem to get worse.""They're probably jumping for joy," Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt said about the Democrats' reaction to stock markets dropping.Trump also appeared to reject his own administration's advice for people feeling unwell to stay at home. He said: "If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better, and then when you do have a death, like you've had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, I believe you had one in New York."There have been no deaths from coronavirus in New York.On Thursday morning, the president hit back via Twitter on his comments relating to going to work.> I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work. This is just more Fake News and disinformation put out by the Democrats, in particular MSDNC. Comcast covers the CoronaVirus situation horribly, only looking to do harm to the incredible & successful effort being made!> > — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2020Shortly afterwards on Thursday morning, New York city mayor Bill De Blasio announced there were two more confirmed cases of coronavirus, brining the number of sufferers in the state to 13.
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| US accuses Russia of breaking 'Open Skies' treaty Posted: 04 Mar 2020 03:07 PM PST  US Defense Secretary Mark Esper accused Russia Wednesday of violating the Open Skies Treaty designed to improve transparency and confidence between the militaries of the two superpowers. Esper told a congressional hearing Russia had been blocking the United States from conducting flights over the Baltic Sea city of Kaliningrad and near Georgia that are permitted by the 18-year-old agreement. "We've also been denied access to military exercise overflights," he said.
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| Chief Justice Chastises Schumer for ‘Threatening’ Statements Posted: 04 Mar 2020 05:28 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered an extraordinary rebuke of Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, chastising him for making "threatening" statements about two justices during an abortion-rights rally outside the court.Schumer earlier Wednesday said Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh "will pay the price" if they sided against abortion access. The senator's remarks came as the court heard arguments in an abortion case for the first time in four years."Justices know that criticism comes with the territory," Roberts said in a statement issued by the court, "but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous."At the rally, Schumer said: "I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions."Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were appointed by President Donald Trump.Trump, in a tweet on Wednesday night, said "There can be few things worse in a civilized, law abiding nation, than a United States Senator openly, and for all to see and hear, threatening the Supreme Court or its Justices. This is what Chuck Schumer just did. He must pay a severe price for this!"The justices are considering a challenge to a Louisiana law requiring abortion clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The statute is similar to a Texas measure the court struck down in 2016, before the two Trump appointees joined the court.Responding to Roberts's rebuke, Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman said in an emailed statement that the minority leader's comments "were a reference to the political price Senate Republicans will pay for putting these justices on the court, and a warning that the justices will unleash a major grassroots movement on the issue of reproductive rights against the decision."Goodman accused Roberts of following "the right wing's deliberate misinterpretation of what Senator Schumer said." He added that Roberts was silent when Trump demanded last week that Democratic-appointed Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor recuse themselves from anything "Trump-related."That "shows Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes," Goodman said. During his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, Roberts likened judges to baseball umpires.Roberts rarely issues public statements about elected officials. He sparred publicly with Trump after the president decried an "Obama judge" who had blocked an administration effort to curb asylum claims. Roberts then issued a statement that said, "We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges."(Updates with Trump tweet, in sixth paragraph)\--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis.To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie AsséoFor 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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| Coronavirus has spread to nearly all Iran provinces: president Posted: 04 Mar 2020 12:04 PM PST  Coronavirus has spread to almost all of Iran's provinces but the country will get through the outbreak with a "minimum" number of deaths, President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday. "It has reached almost all our provinces and in one sense it's a global disease." The health ministry said on Tuesday that 92 people had died so far from coronavirus, one of the highest death tolls outside China where the epidemic originated late last year.
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| MLK's son asks Alabama to stop inmate's upcoming execution Posted: 04 Mar 2020 09:00 AM PST  The son of Martin Luther King, Jr. has called on Alabama's governor to stop Thursday's plan to execute an inmate for the 2004 killings of three police officers in which authorities say a co-defendant did the shooting. Nathaniel Woods, 43, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday evening at a south Alabama prison unless the governor or courts intervene. Family members of Woods also have urged the governor to halt the execution.
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| The 2020 Geneva Motor Show Is Canceled, Forcing Automakers to Unveil Their Cars Online Posted: 04 Mar 2020 01:11 PM PST |
| Joe Biden: Not a Socialist, Just a Scoundrel Posted: 05 Mar 2020 03:30 AM PST  Poor Bernie Sanders! The youth vote failed to show up for him. The youth vote always fails to show up — it will break your heart every time. Senator Sanders didn't lose to Joe Biden — he lost to Tinder, weed, and The Resident. The kids were doing themselves a favor — young people have more of a future for Senator Sanders and his coterie of socialist dingbat malefactors to ruin.Arising from the tumult, triumphant, was the dotty figure of Joe Biden. Biden and Sanders vying for the Democratic nomination, Michael Bloomberg perhaps at least dreaming idly of a third-party run — as of today, the youngest man with a realistic shot of winning the 2020 presidential election is Donald Trump, 73 years of age.What can we say for Joe Biden?For one thing, he is not a socialist.………So, he is not a socialist.What is he?He is a vicious self-serving political hack, for one thing, one whose ambition leads him from time to time into shocking indecency. You may have heard that Biden lost his wife and daughter in a horrifying drunk-driving wreck, the fault of a monster of a man who irresponsibly "drank his lunch," as Biden puts it.Never happened.Biden's wife and daughter did, in fact, die in a car wreck. That is true. It is not true that the driver of the other car was drunk, that he had been drinking, or that there was any reason to believe he was drunk or had been drinking — or even that he was at fault. The late Mrs. Biden "drove into the path of [the] tractor-trailer," the police report says. But Biden, like every other third-rate ward-heeler of his ilk, thinks and speaks only in terms of good guys and bad guys, white hats and black hats — and if something bad happens to good people, then it must be because somebody in a black hat did something nefarious. The driver of that truck went to his grave haunted by Biden's lies, to the point where his children were forced to beg the vice president to stop defaming their late father. The casual cruelty with which Biden is willing to subordinate the lives of ordinary people to his political ambitions — for the sake of a petty tear-jerker line in one of his occasionally plagiarized stump speeches — is remarkable.But that's Joe Biden. Just a regular guy from Scranton who takes the train to work (with a 20-man security detail swarming the platform at every stop and the aisles roped off to separate him from the riffraff, as I have seen firsthand) whose kids ended up growing vastly wealthy from unpredictable business opportunities to which they had no especial claim beyond their proximity to political power.Biden was protected by the Democratic political machine and then by Senate seniority; later, he was protected by the Obama administration and by protectors of the Obama administration. And so he continues doing the same things he always has done. Some of you may remember that Biden — who got into trouble for plagiarism back in the 1980s, when I was in eighth grade (and who already was running for president way back then) — was pillaging Margaret Thatcher's speeches (and Neil Kinnock's, too, not that anybody remembers him) to flesh out one of his own orations. That was embarrassing. What is embarrassing is that he is still doing it, as the Washington Post reports, with his campaign stealing material for advocacy groups and presenting it as the work of his campaign.That is a pattern. A man who can lightly misrepresent the circumstances surrounding the death of his wife and infant daughter is liable to be just as cavalier when it comes to, say, slavery, telling a largely black audience that Mitt Romney — Mitt Romney! — wants to "put y'all back in chains." (Oh, that "y'all"!) Cynical doesn't begin to cover it.One of the worst features of our political life is the ugly and dishonest fights we have over Supreme Court nominations — a habit that can be laid squarely at the feet of Joe Biden, who along with Ted Kennedy, that pillar of human decency, organized one of the worst smear campaigns in modern American political history against Robert Bork, whose great crime against humanity was taking the "extremist" position that the Constitution actually says what it says rather than what anybody with power wishes it would say at any given moment, and that the way to amend the Constitution is to amend the Constitution rather than having nine wizards in black robes pull previously undiscovered constitutional mandates out of the penumbras upon which they sit all day. Don't like the way Merrick Garland was treated? Mitch McConnell didn't start that game — he is just better at it than his contemporary Democratic colleagues are. For lying partisan viciousness in the modern mode, Joe Biden is your man.He is a liar, a corruptor of institutions, and a grifter of the first order.But he's not a socialist. I'll give him that.
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| Trump denies official coronavirus death rate based on his 'hunch' and suggests people with deadly virus can go to work Posted: 05 Mar 2020 02:49 AM PST  Donald Trump has denied the official global death rate for coronavirus reported by health experts because he has a "hunch" it is lower.The president described the 3.4 per cent global death rate given by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday as a "false number" in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity and gave medical advice which contradicted his public health experts.
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| For Putin, victory in Syria is personal Posted: 04 Mar 2020 06:44 PM PST  When Turkey's president visited Russia last summer, the sun shone as he shared ice cream and admired fighter jets with a friendly Vladimir Putin. For Putin, observers say, victory in Syria is not just political, it's personal. "Putin's rise as a masterful strategist is associated with Syria," said Yury Barmin, a Middle East analyst at the Russian International Affairs Council, established to advise the Kremlin.
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| Progressives Want To Take Down The Electoral College Posted: 05 Mar 2020 03:45 AM PST  And they are working to change it.
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| Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang is 'looking at' a run for New York City mayor, but will first weigh 'how much value' he can add Posted: 04 Mar 2020 08:58 AM PST  "One of the things I'm most curious about is who are the other candidates in the race, and what the race would look like," Yang said.
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| With North Korea border shut, China warns citizens to keep away, or else Posted: 05 Mar 2020 03:23 AM PST  SINGAPORE/SEOUL (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have told people to stay away from the border with North Korea, which has banned people from China to keep out the coronavirus, or risk being shot by North Korean guards, residents of the area said. Residents said the warning came in a printed notice that Chinese authorities in the area issued this week, the latest indication of how seriously North Korea takes the threat of the virus. Close allies China and North Korea share a 1,400-km (880-mile) frontier that is especially porous in winter, when rivers separating the countries freeze, allowing people to cross.
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| Should You Cancel Travel Plans Amid COVID-19 Concerns? Here's What to Consider Posted: 04 Mar 2020 02:32 PM PST  Here's what to know about canceling travel plans amid COVID-19 concerns.
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| Bernie Sanders unloads on Joe Biden as Super Tuesday makes it a two-man race Posted: 03 Mar 2020 08:38 PM PST  Without uttering the name of his rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders took aim at former Vice President Joe Biden as results from Super Tuesday trickled in.
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| Russian strikes kill 15 civilians in northwest Syria: monitor Posted: 05 Mar 2020 12:22 AM PST  Russian air strikes Thursday killed at least 15 civilians including a child in the last major opposition bastion of Idlib in northwestern Syria, a Britain-based war monitor said. The strikes after midnight targeted an area where displaced Syrians had gathered outside the town of Maaret Misrin in Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. An AFP correspondent saw the bodies of some of the victims wrapped in thick winter blankets at a local hospital.
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| Desperate for Relief, Lebanon Hatches Plan to Avoid Default Posted: 04 Mar 2020 06:51 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Lebanon's government is lurching from one extreme solution to another as it wrangles over whether to repay $1.2 billion of notes maturing in five days.In the latest twist of its effort to avoid a default, it may revive an offer for a debt swap with local holders of its Eurobonds. At a meeting with bankers Tuesday, the finance minister suggested that Lebanese banks swap their entire Eurobond holdings for new debt with lower coupons, a person familiar with the talks said.The government would, under this scenario, pay around $3.5 billion in principal and interest this year to foreign bondholders, said the person, who asked to remain anonymous because the information isn't public.Lebanon has not submitted a proposal to bondholders to move into new longer-dated notes with lower coupons, Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni said in a statement Wednesday.A separate idea is for local banks to try to buy back Eurobonds held by international funds, according to two people familiar with the matter. Lebanese officials have said it would be harder for the nation to reach a restructuring agreement if foreigners owned large amounts of its bonds.The deliberations come as several politicians, including House Speaker Nabih Berri, call on Lebanon to default and preserve its falling reserves for vital imports such as food and medicine.One of the world's most indebted nations, Lebanon is desperate for relief from a burden many economists say is unsustainable. Among the few options left to avoid a default is a swap with local lenders, the biggest holders of Lebanon's sovereign debt with $13.8 billion of Eurobonds at the end of December, or nearly 44% of the total.Another way out for Lebanon is thorough a loan program from the International Monetary Fund. Although IMF experts held meetings in Beirut last week, the issue of securing financing from the fund has become politically charged. Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group that has a major say in government and parliament, has rejected the idea.A previous swap proposal unraveled after rating companies said they might view it as a distressed exchange and downgrade Lebanon.Local banks have lobbied against a default and said the country should live up to its spotless track record of repaying debt. The likelihood of a restructuring has only grown, however, after the government hired financial advisers Lazard Ltd. and law firm Cleary Gottleib Steen & Hamilton last week.Few OptionsSince the central bank first proposed swapping domestic holders into longer-dated notes in January, local banks offloaded some of their Eurobond holdings at a discount to overseas investors such as Ashmore Group, a British fund that's bet the government would pay out. Most of the country's dollar bonds trade at less than 30 cents, while the March 9 notes trade at 59 cents.The transactions are now at the center of a government investigation. The Justice Ministry has asked the public prosecutor to investigate the sales on the ground that local banks might have obstructed the government's efforts to restructure debt.(Updates with seperate government proposal in fifth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Paul Wallace.To contact the reporter on this story: Dana Khraiche in Beirut at dkhraiche@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Paul Abelsky, Paul WallaceFor 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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| Here’s how much the US Navy saves by cutting the first 4 LCS more than a decade early Posted: 05 Mar 2020 05:55 AM PST  Other priorities crowded out the first four littoral combat ships. Here's how much the Navy saved.
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| ‘Bernie’s gonna do it’: New delegate count shows Sanders-Biden race still too close to call Posted: 05 Mar 2020 04:58 AM PST  Bernie Sanders has insisted he still "has a shot" of securing the Democratic nomination and defeating Donald Trump after Joe Biden launched an unexpected comeback on Super Tuesday in the party's presidential primary.The Vermont senator's comment came as the latest delegate count in the Democratic primary showed Mr Sanders close to the former vice president.
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| Lawsuit: Dem Donor Linked to Controversial Ukrainian Oligarch Posted: 05 Mar 2020 01:54 AM PST  A bespectacled Ukrainian oligarch with a strongman reputation popped up over and over throughout the Donald Trump impeachment saga. And now, little-noticed filings in Delaware Chancery Court allege a closer relationship than previously known between that oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky, and a South Florida businessman who donated to a member of Congress. It's another example of how people and companies linked to some of the former Soviet Union's most controversial oligarchs end up with connections to Capitol Hill. In Kolomoisky's case, this is far from the first congressional link. In 2017, Rep. Ron Estes (R-KS) secured a room in the basement of the Capitol Building for a fake congressional hearing. The focus of that hearing: lambasting a former Ukrainian official who seized control of PrivatBank, a bank Kolomoisky had previously owned. And now a lawsuit filed in Delaware last spring alleges that a South Florida businessman named Uriel Laber played a key role in an alleged scheme by Kolomoisky to steal billions from that bank. (Laber strongly denies the allegations.) In 2017 and 2018, Laber gave a total of $2,500 to then-candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, now a Democratic member of Congress who flipped a Florida seat previously held by Republicans. Mucarsel-Powell sits on the House Judiciary Committee, which helped helm impeachment proceedings targeting President Donald Trump over his pressure campaign against the Ukrainian government. Mucarsel-Powell's husband previously worked for firms linked to Kolomoisky, as The Daily Beast first reported. "The Miami Herald long ago debunked far-fetched theories involving Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell," said her spokesperson in a statement. "Moreover, one of the first things Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell did in Congress is fight for a bill to protect our government from foreign influence."The oligarch, who has not been charged with a crime in the U.S. or Ukraine, has allies in high places. His TV channel aired the show that propelled Ukraine's now-president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to fame. And one of Kolomoisky's former lawyers, Andriy Bohdan, was the president's chief of staff until last month. Rudy Giuliani—who was at the center of Trump's efforts to pressure Zelensky to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden—telegraphed to Ukrainian officials that he wanted Bohdan out. However, a lawyer for ex-Giuliani associate Lev Parnas told The Daily Beast that Trump's personal lawyer also delivered a letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) calling for sanctions on a host of Kolomoisky's Ukrainian foes. On the list: the former regulator who was also the target of the Capitol basement fake hearing. Given Biden's newfound frontrunner status in the Democratic presidential primary, the Ukraine story is finding its way back into the center of American politics after a brief post-impeachment respite. Senate Republicans, helmed by Chairman Ron Johnson of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, are ramping up their probe into the work Biden's son did for a Ukrainian energy company controlled by a different allegedly corrupt oligarch. Laber, according to allegations in the lawsuit, has a peripheral connection to the long and sprawling saga of PrivatBank. According to the litigation—from a bank now controlled by the Ukrainian government—he played a meaningful role in Kolomoisky's alleged scheme to seize billions from PrivatBank.Laber's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the suit last year. And a spokesperson for Laber strongly denied the allegations in a statement to The Daily Beast. > The allegations contained in the May 21 Delaware Chancery Court lawsuit are not only 100% false and defamatory, but they are outlandish. Unfortunately, people can make whatever allegations they want about someone else even when they are not true. This lawsuit is a perfect case in point. Messrs. Laber and Korf are outraged that the hard-earned reputation they have earned over the last 20 years as honest businessmen can be threatened by a lawsuit that is nothing more than a fictional orchestrated political attack on an investor in our businesses. They plan to fight the allegations vigorously and fully expect to be fully cleared of these allegations. With respect to the donations you referenced, Mr. Laber's recollection is that he made a personal donation of $500 in 2017 and $2000 in 2018 to Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Debbie Powell's husband was hired by the company of which Messrs. Laber and Korf were owners more than ten years prior to her decision to run for Congress. Mr. Powell stopped working for the company in 2017, of which Messrs. Laber and Korf were owners. Mr. Kolomoiskys company is a shareholder of the company where Mr. Powell used to work. He is not the owner. Mr. Powell did not work for Mr. Kolomoisky; Mr. Kolomoisky has no involvement in any hires or HR decisions.> > Mr. Laber does not work for Mr. Kolomoisky and has never worked for Mr. Kolomoisky. Mr. Laber has had a very successful business career entirely separate from Kolomoisky and significant sources of his assets and earnings are entirely separate from Mr. Kolomoisky.The allegations themselves, leveled against Kolomoisky, Laber, and a number of other people, are eyebrow-raising. The plaintiffs claim "hundreds of millions of dollars in damages" from unjust enrichment, fraudulent transfer of funds, and violation of Ohio's RICO statute (legislation designed to fight organized crime). Laber and other defendants, the suit alleges, used millions of ill-gotten dollars to buy Miami real estate. Laber and other defendants acted as "trusted lieutenants… in the United States and abroad" for Kolomoisky and his business partners, the suit alleges.Kolomoisky has spent years trying to regain control of the bank. And in his time in public life, he's gained a reputation of using hardball tactics to get what he wants. The lawsuit said that in one case, Kolomoisky and his business partner "are alleged to have employed an 'army of thugs' to descend upon a competitor's plant with baseball bats, gas, rubber pistols, iron bars, and chainsaws." Kolomoisky was governor of a province in Eastern Ukraine when Russian-backed separatists started a war there. He used his billions to fund a private army that took on those forces. His militarism has also frightened many of his critics. And while The Wall Street Journal dubbed him "Ukraine's secret weapon" because of that fight, years later he took a much more Kremlin-friendly stance. In an interview with The New York Times in the middle of the impeachment process, he called for Ukraine to seek better relations with Russia, even at the expense of its standing with Western powers. "They're stronger anyway," he said of the Kremlin. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Yemen cafes shut, women harassed as Huthis impose harsh morals campaign Posted: 04 Mar 2020 05:52 PM PST  The Huthi rebels arrived without warning, heavily armed and in a furious mood, as they barged into Ophelia, the only cafe for women in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, and demanded it be shut down immediately. In recent months, restaurants where men and women mingle have been shut down, scissor-wielding militia have policed men's hairstyles, and rebel forces have patrolled college campuses to enforce dress codes. Yemen's long war has pitted the Huthis, who are backed by Iran and control large swathes of the north, against the internationally recognised government which has the support of a Saudi-led military coalition.
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| As the coronavirus spreads, one study predicts that even the best-case scenario is 15 million dead and a $2.4 trillion hit to global GDP Posted: 05 Mar 2020 02:15 AM PST  A group of Australian researchers estimate that the coronavirus may have severe consequences on the global GDP.
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| China's Handling of the Coronavirus Has United Its People Against the Government Posted: 05 Mar 2020 12:30 AM PST  How China's Great Firewall was breached.
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| Spooky gunship crew honored for heroism during ferocious Afghanistan battle Posted: 04 Mar 2020 12:42 PM PST  "The most lethal part of any gunship ... is the crew," AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. Jim Slife said.
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| FISA Court Blacklists FBI Agents Involved in Surveilling Carter Page Posted: 05 Mar 2020 07:22 AM PST  The chief judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has barred Justice Department and FBI officials under review for wiretapping former Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page from appearing before the Court.In a 19-page opinion, Judge James E. Boasberg ordered that "FBI personnel under disciplinary review in relation to their work on FISA applications accordingly should not participate in drafting, verifying, reviewing, or submitting such application to the Court while the review is pending." He added that any "DOJ or FBI personnel under disciplinary or criminal review" are also prohibited from working on FISA applications.Boasberg also called for a higher bar in regards to the disclosure of exculpatory evidence, and ordered agents to swear in future cases that any FISA warrant application contains "all information that might reasonably call into question the accuracy of the information or the reasonableness of any F.B.I. assessment in the application, or otherwise raise doubts about the requested findings."DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz detailed in his December report on the FBI's "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation how the Bureau knowingly omitted details of Page's prior working relationship with the CIA, as well as numerous potentially exculpatory statements he made to other sources, which undercut the Steele Dossier's allegations used in the FBI's warrants.Horowitz also described how "FBI officials at every level" — including former deputy director Andrew McCabe and former director James Comey — reached a consensus that Steele was a reliable source, despite overhead concerns that his allegations could be biased given that he had been contracted by the Democratic National Committee through the research firm Fusion GPS.
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| U.S. opposes releasing a dying Bernard Madoff from prison early Posted: 04 Mar 2020 07:27 PM PST  The U.S. government opposed Bernard Madoff's request to be freed from prison even if he is close to death from kidney failure, saying he has never accepted responsibility for his massive Ponzi scheme or shown compassion for victims. In a Wednesday night court filing, prosecutors said denying the 81-year-old Madoff's request would uphold victims' and public faith in the justice system. "Madoff's crimes were extraordinarily evil," prosecutors said.
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| ‘Complete failure’: Bloomberg humiliated after winning zero US states on Super Tuesday despite spending $559m on campaign ads Posted: 04 Mar 2020 03:00 AM PST  Michael Bloomberg is expected to pull out of the Democratic presidential race after failing to win in any states on Super Tuesday despite spending more than half a billion dollars of his own money on campaign advertising.The billionaire former New York mayor's only victory came in the tiny US territory of American Samoa, which earned him four delegates.
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| Republicans Dive Back Into Hunter Biden Investigations, Saying Voters Deserve It Posted: 04 Mar 2020 05:10 PM PST  Joe Biden's recent surge in the Democratic primary has revived his White House hopes and, with them, the Senate GOP's interest in using their power to dig into his son Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine.The desire for dirt on the Bidens was what prompted House Democrats to impeach President Donald Trump, after it was revealed he was leveraging military aid to Ukraine as part of his efforts. But as Biden seemed to fade from contention during the early voting contests, interest in Hunter Biden's time on the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma seemed to fade among Trump and Republicans too. That's now changed. On the heels of Biden's string of primary wins on Tuesday, GOP lawmakers are teeing up letters and subpoenas for new information on the Bidens. And they're offering up a fresh explanation for why the push is justified: they're just vetting the guy for the benefit of Democratic primary voters."If he is in fact the frontrunner for the Democratic nominee to be president of the United States," said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), "all the more reason to get to the bottom of it, and make sure that the people have all the information that they need to make an informed decision on the person that would be president of the United States."The de facto leader of the Biden investigations, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), told reporters on Wednesday that Biden has not "adequately answered" questions about his family's involvement in Ukraine, despite no actual evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the former VP. "[I]f I were a Democrat primary voter, I'd want these questions satisfactorily answered before I cast my final vote," he said.Trump's Big Lie About Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Ukraine Falls ApartOn Monday, Johnson announced that the Senate oversight panel, which he chairs, would be moving forward with a subpoena for documents and testimony related to Hunter Biden's service on the board of Burisma. And in the same breath he raised unanswered questions about the Bidens, the Wisconsin senator insisted that going after them was not his intention. "My investigations are not focused on the Bidens," he said. "They just aren't. But I can't ignore them, because they're part of the story. They made themselves part of the story... they made themselves part of this issue of legitimate investigation."The idea that Republican lawmakers are providing a public service to Democratic primary voters was treated as absurd by Democrats on Wednesday. Instead, they saw the renewed interest in Hunter Biden and Burisma as a not-particularly-subtle attempt to tar Joe Biden by association—raising questions about his integrity that don't need to be asked right as the general election is approaching. "Get ready," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who has traveled with Johnson to Ukraine on several occasions. "The Senate is going to turn into an arm of the Trump campaign. I don't think we've expected anything different. The President is willing to use all the official powers at his disposal to try to destroy his political rivals. The Senate Republicans gave him a pass on that, and thus it stands to reason they would attempt to do some version of the same thing."The president's allies allege that Biden, when he was vice president, corruptly endeavored to protect his son Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine by working to oust a Ukrainian prosecutor who was looking into corruption at Burisma. But that prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, had put those investigations aside. And while much was made by Republicans of Biden's push to get rid of him, the Obama administration and U.S. allies wanted to see him gone, too, because he was seen as insufficiently committed to fighting corruption. Democrats Left Joe Biden for Dead. Then They Decided He Was Their SaviorNeither U.S. nor Ukrainian officials ever filed criminal charges against the Bidens, and the former Ukrainian prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, said in May 2019 that there was no evidence of wrongdoing. The Bidens themselves have denied wrongdoing, too. "We already knew that Donald Trump is terrified of facing Joe Biden—because he got himself impeached by trying to force a foreign country to spread lies about the Vice President on behalf of his re-election campaign," said Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the Biden campaign. "Now, Senator Johnson just flat out conceded that this is a ham-handed effort to manipulate Democratic primary voters."President Trump himself remains closely in touch with some of the most central figures off Capitol Hill trying to trigger investigations of the Biden family and Ukraine. On Wednesday, the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani told The Daily Beast that he was still in regular contact with Trump. Asked when the two of them last spoke, the Trump attorney replied, "yesterday"—the same day Biden dominated Super Tuesday's Democratic contests and dramatically improved his chances of securing the party's 2020 presidential nomination. Giuliani would not divulge the nature or subject matter of their Tuesday conversation. But the former New York mayor and leading Biden antagonist had previously vowed, following Trump's acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial, to continue to probe the Bidens and Ukraine issues.As The Daily Beast reported last month, Giuliani has done so at the explicit encouragement of his client, with Trump, post-acquittal, privately urging his attorney to keep digging on the matter and to keep the president updated on whatever progress he makes.In early February, Giuliani said he was planning on "ramping up" his probes into Joe and Hunter Biden, claiming that "it's a matter of the fair administration of justice for real."In the Senate, that ramping-up was timed nicely with Biden's reemergence in the Democratic race. On Sunday, the day after Biden's comeback win in the South Carolina primary, Johnson sent a letter to members of his committee notifying them of plans to hold a vote on a subpoena for Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomat who worked for a consulting firm, Blue Star Strategies, that represented Burisma in the U.S. GOP Base Is Hot to Probe Biden, Senate Republicans Not So MuchIn his letter, Johnson wrote that he is "convinced obtaining Mr. Telizhenko's Blue Star documents and information is an important part of this investigation." Telizhenko, reported The Daily Beast in November, has ties to Trumpworld figures like Rudy Giuliani, and helped spread the narrative popular among the president's allies that Ukrainian officials meddled in the 2016 election to hurt Trump.A vote on the subpoena is scheduled for Mar. 11. If approved, it will be the first subpoena issued by Senate Republicans for anything related to Burisma. Asked to respond to allegations of fishy timing, Johnson scoffed. "They're just wrong," he said on Wednesday.The top Democrat on Johnson's committee, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), declined to say to reporters if he felt that the probe is politically motivated. He did oppose it, however, on the grounds it was a waste of time: "This investigation should not be part of what we're doing at Homeland Security," said Peters. "There are too many other important issues that impact the security of our country."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| 290 million students out of school as global virus battle intensifies Posted: 05 Mar 2020 05:56 AM PST  Almost 300 million students worldwide faced weeks at home with Italy and India the latest to shut schools over the deadly new coronavirus, as the IMF urged an all-out global offensive against the epidemic. The US state of California declared an emergency following its first coronavirus fatality -- raising the US death toll to 11 -- and a cruise ship was kept offshore after passengers and crew members developed symptoms. Most deaths and infections are in China, where the virus first emerged late last year, prompting the country to quarantine entire cities, temporarily shut factories and close schools indefinitely.
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| Photos capture how the US is reacting to the coronavirus outbreak, from stocking up on supplies to deep cleaning mass transit and schools Posted: 04 Mar 2020 10:39 PM PST  As the new coronavirus continues to infect more people in the United States, these 12 photos show the impact of the outbreak.
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