| Bernie Sanders is hammering Joe Biden on Social Security Posted: 08 Mar 2020 11:44 AM PDT  Bernie Sanders has launched an offensive against Joe Biden in the days since last week's Super Tuesday results essentially rendered the Democratic presidential primary a two-man race.
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| Gates Foundation is funding at-home coronavirus test kits in Washington state Posted: 08 Mar 2020 11:48 PM PDT  Washington state has confirmed 136 cases of coronavirus and 18 deaths, and a state of emergency has been declared.
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| U.S. airport screeners, health workers plagued by fear and anger as coronavirus spreads Posted: 07 Mar 2020 05:05 PM PST  Screeners with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked their supervisors this week to change official protocols and require stronger masks, according to an internal document reviewed by Reuters. On Friday evening, they learned their worst fears were realized: Two screeners, both working at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), had tested positive for the virus. "Sad news," a senior quarantine official at the CDC wrote in an email Friday evening to colleagues about the two workers.
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| Days After Rep. Matt Gaetz Wore a Gas Mask to Vote on COVID-19 Funding, the Virus Killed One of His Constituents Posted: 08 Mar 2020 11:50 AM PDT  Gaetz released a statement to say that he was 'extremely saddened' by the news
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| Trump impeachment: Key witness says Putin has US 'exactly where he wants us' Posted: 08 Mar 2020 08:17 AM PDT  One of the former officials who testified in the impeachment hearings against Donald Trump has warned that Vladimir Putin has the US "exactly where he wants us".Speaking to CBS's 60 Minutes in her first major interview since her testimony last year, Fiona Hill said that while the Russians did not invent the divisions in US politics and society they knew how to exploit them.
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| Oil price war, Mecca ban are latest risks by Saudi prince Posted: 09 Mar 2020 05:21 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is behind the kingdom's boldest and riskiest moves in decades, most recently shutting down Islam's holiest sites to pilgrims to stymie the spread of a new virus and the government's decision to slash oil prices in what analysts say has sparked a price war with major producer Russia. As his father's favored son, the 34-year-old prince oversees nearly every major aspect of the country's defense, economy, internal security, social reforms and foreign policy. The prince's headline-grabbing path to power has been paved with controversy, conflict and combat.
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| Report: Iran commander killed in Syria Posted: 09 Mar 2020 07:39 AM PDT  An official with Iran's Revolutionary Guard who took part in battles around war-torn Syria was killed near the Syrian capital, an Iranian semiofficial news agency and an opposition war monitor reported Saturday.
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| Human remains believed to be missing Tennessee toddler Evelyn Boswell found Posted: 07 Mar 2020 01:41 PM PST  Authorities have found remains they believe belong to Evelyn Boswell, a 15-month-old girl from Tennessee who was reportedly last seen late last year.
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| Why Is Alleged Quack Dr. Oz the Face of NBC’s ‘Coronavirus Crisis Team’? Posted: 09 Mar 2020 01:41 AM PDT  For the past week—as the global COVID-19 death toll surpassed 3,800, including at least 22 fatalities in the United States—NBC News has been promoting celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz as the most visible member of the Today show's so-called "Coronavirus Crisis Team."The 59-year-old Oz, an Oprah Winfrey protégé who registered the trademark "America's Doctor" as his self-awarded title, has been urging Today viewers to vigorously scrub their thumbs and fingertips as part of a 20-second hand-washing ritual to combat the spread of the pandemic, and on Friday, exhorted people over the age of 60—those at highest risk of succumbing to the disease—to stick close to home."If I was younger I would go ahead and travel, but if I was older, I wouldn't—and would avoid crowded places," Oz told Today co-host Craig Melvin, suggesting that senior citizens keep at an "arm's length" distance from strangers. "Why take a chance?"That is prudent counsel, to be sure. (Never mind that it directly contradicted Oz's recommendation to 88-year-old William Shatner—on Monday's episode of Access Daily—that the "apprehensive" Star Trek actor proceed with his plans for an international lecture tour: "He can go anywhere he wants. Do not make decisions based on fear… We've gotta live our lives.")The telegenic Oz might well be a talented thoracic surgeon—best known as the host of the popular syndicated daytime program The Dr. Oz Show—but he is hardly an ideal dispenser of medical advice for an increasingly anxious American public."He's just a quack," said physician and scientific researcher Henry I. Miller, one of Oz's more vocal critics in the medical community, but by no means unique in his condemnation of, among other transgressions, Oz's enthusiastic endorsements of phony weight-loss remedies, his bogus claims of dangerous levels of arsenic in children's apple juice, and his willingness to provide a platform to the debunked assertion that genetically modified food causes cancer."He's been dishonest and he has been dispensing misinformation to millions now for years," said Miller, who in 2015 led an unsuccessful campaign to pressure Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons to fire Oz from its faculty. "I wouldn't trust any of his observations, and don't see how he would have responsible and valid views on coronavirus."NBC News declined to comment on Oz's critics or his role on the Today show, where he is one of several paid physician-contributors—but surely the most famous and camera-savvy—who've been enlisted in recent days as on-air experts to address viewers' coronavirus concerns.In a statement to The Daily Beast, Oz responded: "There are lots of detractors in life who have trouble hearing the truth or engaging in difficult debates about multi-sided topics. I have spent my career with the belief that knowledge is power and I have never shied away from that mantra. We are in the midst of one of the biggest epidemics in recent time and my focus is on educating and calming a fearful public. That's what we all should be focused on right now."Oz and the 72-year-old Dr. Miller—a former Food and Drug Administration official and ex-academic fellow at Stanford University's conservative-leaning Hoover Institution—are longtime adversaries. On an April 2015 installment of The Dr. Oz Show, Oz countered Miller's headline-grabbing open letter to Columbia University demanding his dismissal by slamming Miller as a paid shill for the tobacco, pesticide, and genetically modified food industries. (Indeed, Miller was dropped as a columnist by Forbes magazine in 2017 after The New York Times reported that one of his 2015 bylined columns largely echoed a draft prepared by employees of Monsanto.)In addition, Oz noted that one of the letter's 10 physician co-signers, Dr. Gilbert Ross, was a convicted felon who served prison time for Medicaid fraud.Still, most of Oz's critics are not so easily attacked.Three Mayo Clinic scientists—Dr. Jon C. Tilburt, M.D., and PhDs Megan Allyse and Frederic W. Hafferty—pulled no punches in their February 2017 article in the AMA Journal of Ethics about the troubling questions raised by Oz's public influence."Should a physician be allowed to say anything—however inaccurate and potentially harmful—so long as that individual commands market share?" they wrote. "In a professional sector whose history and growth is marked by the sustained and rightful denouncement of quacks and quackery… an inability to define and fence the epistemic boundaries of scientific medicine from apparent quackery on such a visible scale becomes something akin to a full-scale identity crisis for medicine…"Dr. Oz certainly appears to be someone peddling unproven and ineffective remedies for personal gain… Yet, he remains immensely popular, prompting us to wonder, if we can't effectively sanction Dr. Oz, whom can we sanction?"Meanwhile, a May 2018 article by Rina Raphael, Fast Company magazine's health and technology writer, decried Donald Trump's appointment of Oz to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition."The inclusion of Dr. Oz took many in the health industry by surprise, especially those who have been following the TV star's snake-oil antics over the last few years," Raphael wrote. "Oz has been repeatedly called out for his support of false, deceptive products and unproven medical practices, both from the medical community and consumer watchdog groups."His appointment clearly speaks in no way to his reputation as a trusted medical source, but rather to his celebrity status—and the ability to parlay that into multiple business opportunities. Perhaps that's what Trump, who has shown a preference for pundits over experts, finds appealing."More likely, Trump was simply rewarding Oz for letting the then-Republican presidential nominee and his daughter Ivanka onto the Sept. 15, 2016 installment of his syndicated show to tell whoppers, unchallenged, about his physical condition, especially the obvious sham that the obese candidate weighed only 236 pounds. Oz accepted at face value the conclusions of Trump's discredited doctor, Harold Bornstein, who declared that his patient "will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.""Talk about two snake-oil salesman!" then-Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said at the time about Trump's appearance on Dr. Oz."I mean one of them says, 'Take a pill and you'll be thin'… from your lips to God's ear wouldn't we all love that? Not true. Not medically true. Not scientifically true. And Dr. Oz knows it," said McCaskill, who famously dressed Oz down for pushing diet scams during a 2014 Senate hearing.Trump, meanwhile, is "promising things that are totally not true. Lying every time he opens his mouth," McCaskill added. "So I think it's really a marriage made in heaven."Oz's legion of critics also includes, but isn't limited to, New Yorker science writer Michael Specter, the British Medical Journal, and Popular Science magazine.As of this writing, however, it seems highly doubtful that NBC News and the Today show will spend even a second, much less 20, washing their hands of Dr. Oz.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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| China reported its lowest number of new coronavirus cases since the outbreak began as other countries struggle to contain the spread Posted: 09 Mar 2020 06:23 AM PDT  China reported 40 new coronavirus cases on Monday. At its peak, it was reporting as many as 4,000 new infections a day.
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| These people treated Sars, Ebola and swine flu: what is their advice on beating coronavirus? Posted: 08 Mar 2020 12:32 PM PDT  As Europe struggles to contain Covid-19, some of the country's leading health and science experts reflect on the previous outbreaks they have witnessed on the frontline and the lessons that can be learned to prevent its spread. Sars: Dr Simon Mardel, OBE I was a clinician with the World Health Organisation when the SARS virus was discovered in 2003. I had already been involved in previous outbreaks like Ebola, Marburg and Lassa fever (during the Sierra Leone civil war in 1997) and was focused on how to improve treatment but at the same time stop the spread of infection in health care. Health professionals are on the frontline of such outbreaks. Over the years many colleagues have ended up contracting diseases, often with tragic consequences. SARS - like Ebola - was spread through healthcare facilities. I'm really worried about the potential of Covid-19 to do the same. During severe outbreaks staff are forced to work in extreme circumstances and can miss out on essential steps of protection. I remember a nurse I once saw crying into her gloved hands on an Ebola ward, grieving for a friend she had cared for during her last hours of life; or a doctor who performed a difficult procedure on a nurse with Lassa fever in a dimly-lit, overcrowded ward with no bin to store his medical waste.
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| Empty streets and paranoia as northern Italy goes into lockdown Posted: 08 Mar 2020 06:09 PM PDT  The sun shone on deserted squares in Milan and empty gondolas in Venice on Sunday as a quarter of Italy's population came to grips with being cut off from the rest of the country, under new rules strictly limiting movement in and out of the new red zone. While some packed their bags and fled, most in northern Italy stayed to brave a lockdown imposed by the government on some 15 million people, as it ramps up the fight against the deadly coronavirus. Italy's interior ministry said anyone flouting the lockdown risked at least three months in jail or a 206 euro ($233) fine.
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| Coronavirus has sparked a perfect storm of nationalism and financial speculation Posted: 07 Mar 2020 10:45 PM PST  Wall Street could recover before coronavirus subsides – but the global economy won't be the sameNationalism and speculation have seldom had a better opportunity to combine forces as the one riding today on the coattails of Covid-19, known as the coronavirus.When Covid-19 leapfrogged from China to Italy, even ardent Europeanists normally appreciative of open borders joined the deafening calls to end freedom of movement across Europe's national borders – a longstanding demand of nationalists. Meanwhile, the money men speculating on government debt are performing a classic flight from Italian to German government bonds, seeking the financial safety that only the continent's hegemon can offer during any crisis. As if in a bid to remind us of the great contradiction of our times, Covid-19 is illuminating gloriously the freedom of money to transcend a borderless financial universe while humans remain as fenced in as ever.Meanwhile in the United States, President Trump is combining his standard call for taller walls with a fresh instruction to moneymen to "buy the dip" in Wall Street, rather than to follow their natural instinct to seek refuge in the boring but safe bond markets. A great deal will depend on whether financiers believe Mr Trump or not, and not just because this is an election year.If speculators do believe the American president, Wall Street will recover swiftly even before the epidemic subsides. The forces of xenophobic financialisation will then have triumphed and America's progressives will face an uphill struggle on every political front. As for the European Union, ruling elites will breathe a sigh of relief that a new depression was avoided and return to managing as best as they can the economic stagnation of recent times, tinged this time with a large dose of additional, coronavirus-reinforced, xenophobia.> Speculators will make a mint and nationalist forces will milk the ensuing discontent for all its worthWill Wall Street follow Mr Trump's advice to "buy the dip"? For now, the large players are in two minds. The drop in the stock market does not worry them as such. Their concern is that the recent bull market was running on increasingly suspect debt and that Covid-19 may have pricked a bubble that was going to burst anyway. Similarly in Europe, the worst spectre hovering over investors' heads is that large corporations, relying for too long on free money from the European Central Bank, may be downgraded from investment to junk-grade – especially so at a time of stagnant domestic demand and a collapsed Chinese import market.Taking a leaf out of the aftermath of the crash of 2008, and the Eurozone crisis that followed, bullish speculators are looking at their central banks, primarily the Fed and the ECB, to do, once again, "whatever it takes" to re-float their flagging fortunes. Two questions keep them up at night: will the central banks oblige? And if they do, will it be enough?The first question is easy to answer: governments are impotent on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States the federal budget deficit is already at a historic high, especially in the context of a tight labour market, while the Eurozone remains in the straightjacket of its fiscal compact. Therefore the central banks will be forced, whether they like it or not, to step up to the mark. Already we have seen announcements of lower interest rates, even of Japanese-style semi-direct purchases of government and private debt by the monetary authorities.But will it be enough for the central banks to throw more money at the Covid-19-infected money markets? Will the economy go back to where we were a month ago if enough liquidity is pumped into the system? Or will it resemble a slow puncture that demands increasing pump-priming to stay inflated? Moreover, will the new wall of public money push back the wall of xenophobia? The sad answer to the last question is instructive about the economic ones too.When a border closes down, it does not open again easily even if the conditions that caused its closure are largely reversed. This is a safe lesson from Europe's recent experience. Take, for example, Austria, which closed its border with Italy following the rise of refugee arrivals in the summer of 2015. For a couple of years after that refugee wave had died out, the borders remained shut. Similarly with the borders along the Western Balkans. Why is this relevant to the question of whether increased central bank liquidity will ameliorate the effects of Covid-19 on the economy? To answer, we need to remind ourselves of what happened after the crash of 2008.There were two responses to the 2008 crisis that saved capitalism from total collapse: the gigantic injection of liquidity into the economy by central banks, the Fed above all else; and China, whose government took it upon itself intentionally to build up the greatest private credit bubble in history to replace the lost export demand by a stupendous investment boost. The Fed's and China's intervention succeeded in re-floating global finance and putting stock markets onto the path of their longest growth spurt. However, the world did not go back to its pre-2008 ways.Before 2008, Wall Street played a crucial role in recycling non-US surpluses that were the repercussion of American deficits into global investment funding. After 2008, the refloated Wall Street could not perform that task, channelling much of the abundant liquidity not to fixed capital investment but to share buy-backs and other asset purchases. The result was that the post-2008 economy is characterised by savings being permanently in excess of capital goods investment. Since savings are the supply of money and investment its demand, the permanent excess supply of money explains the permanently low, or negative, interest rates. It also explains the downward pressure on median wages against a background of rising asset prices causing unbearable inequality and thus producing the political triumphs of xenophobic nationalism.In precisely the same way that the increased liquidity after 2008 failed to rebalance savings and investment globally, so will any renewed monetary "easing" to counter the ill effects of Covid-19 fail to return the global economy to its pre-February state. Of course, as happened after 2008, speculators will make a mint and nationalist forces will milk the ensuing discontent for all its worth.
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| Nazi salutes, Molotov cocktails rock massive Mexico women's march Posted: 08 Mar 2020 11:38 PM PDT  A group of women outside Mexico City's main cathedral clashed on Sunday with men protesting abortion who made Nazi salutes, among scuffles that left dozens injured during a protest of tens of thousands of people on International Women's Day. The incidents reflected an undercurrent of anger throughout the day, in which the city government said 80,000 people marched through Mexico City's historic core to the public square fronting the cathedral and National Palace. Wearing green bandanas symbolizing support for abortion rights, at least a dozen women ripped down banners describing abortion as femicide and set them on fire.
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| As coronavirus spreads, France bans large public gatherings nationwide Posted: 08 Mar 2020 09:28 PM PDT  With 1,126 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus in France, the government has now banned public gatherings of more than 1,000 people."The priority is to do all we can to slow the transmission of the virus," Health Minister Olivier Véran said Sunday. The prohibition does not apply to political demonstrations, public transportation, or school exams, Reuters reports. Last week, the government banned gatherings of more than 5,000 people in coronavirus hotspots, but this new rule affects the entire country.At least 19 people have died of COVID-19 in France, and the number of confirmed cases rose by 336 from Saturday to Sunday. Four members of France's National Assembly have tested positive for COVID-19 and are now hospitalized.More stories from theweek.com Trump retweets White House photo of him fiddling, says he doesn't know 'what this means' Washington nursing home with coronavirus outbreak reported shocking escalation from 'no symptoms to death' Trump says doctors keep asking how he knows so much about the coronavirus
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| Police: Fight over parking spot led to deadly mall shooting Posted: 09 Mar 2020 12:22 AM PDT |
| Hillary Clinton: Sanders wouldn’t be our strongest candidate Posted: 08 Mar 2020 07:21 AM PDT  But she stops short of endorsing Biden outright.
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| State lawmakers wage war on science instruction Posted: 09 Mar 2020 04:00 AM PDT  "The problem is when it's set up as 'both sides' — as if there are two scientific sides, when there aren't," a science educator said.
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| The US government has completed fewer than 6,000 coronavirus tests as more states report new cases and deaths Posted: 07 Mar 2020 01:29 PM PST  "We don't have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward," Vice President Mike Pence said on Thursday.
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| Coronavirus live updates: US death toll hits 21; Grand Princess to dock Monday; Sen. Ted Cruz to self-quarantine Posted: 08 Mar 2020 08:59 PM PDT  The U.S. death toll climbed to 19 this weekend, but there was some good news for passengers and crew of a cruise ship hit by the new coronavirus.
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| Tourist in Egypt becomes 1st confirmed virus death in Africa Posted: 08 Mar 2020 12:18 PM PDT  A German tourist died Sunday of the novel coronavirus in a Sinai resort of eastern Egypt, the health ministry announced, the first death from the epidemic recorded in Africa. "The 60-year-old German citizen showed symptoms of a fever (and) checked into Hurghada hospital on 6 March," before testing positive for COVID-19, it said in a statement. On Saturday, the health ministry announced 45 suspected cases of Egyptians and foreigners contracting the virus aboard a Nile cruise ship.
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| Thousands of people in Italy panicked and tried to flee its 16-million-person coronavirus quarantine after the plan leaked Posted: 09 Mar 2020 04:37 AM PDT  "Some of those who fled will be infected with the disease," said one virus expert — increasing the risk it will spread further.
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| Donald Trump Jr. Defends ‘Hyperbole’ About Democrats and Coronavirus Posted: 08 Mar 2020 05:32 PM PDT  Just over a week ago, as the severity of the worldwide coronavirus outbreak was just starting to become apparent, Donald Trump Jr. went on Fox & Friends and said this about Democrats: "Anything that they can use to try to hurt Trump, they will… But for them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so they can end Donald Trump's streak of winning is a new level of sickness." In a new clip from Sunday night's episode of Axios on HBO, the first son is asked by co-host Jim VandeHei if he has any "regrets" about those remarks. "Not at all, not at all," Trump Jr. said, looking down. He stammered a bit as he added, "I think I can talk about it in hyperbole. You know, I don't know that they want 'millions' of people—but you could see them, there was nothing that Trump could do that could turn his response to coronavirus into, 'Hey, he did a good job.'" After trying to shift blame to The New York Times for an op-ed column headlined, "Let's Call It Trumpvirus," Trump Jr. repeated, "I'm entitled to speak with hyperbole and I think that drives home the point of what I'm saying." And yet even as he was defending his "right" to accuse Democrats of wishing for mass death, Trump Jr. did finally acknowledge that it was all for political sport. "I don't actually think that," he said. SNL Roasts Trump's Coronavirus Response: 'We're All Gonna Die'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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| Two GOP Lawmakers to Quarantine After Contact With Infected Case Posted: 08 Mar 2020 07:46 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Two Republican lawmakers will self-quarantine in their houses after contact at a recent political conference with a person who later tested positive for coronavirus.Senator Ted Cruz will self-quarantine in his Texas home. He said he had a "brief conversation and a handshake" with the unnamed person at the recent CPAC conference in National Harbor, Maryland."I'm not experiencing any symptoms, and I feel fine and healthy," Cruz said in a statement, adding that authorities have advised him the odds of transmission given their brief interaction was "extremely low." Those who've interacted with him in the last 10 days "should not be concerned about potential transmission," medical authorities have told him.Cruz said he will remain home until a full 14 days have passed since the interaction at the conservative political conference. Cruz said the CPAC interaction was 10 days ago.CPAC is one of the largest annual gatherings of Republicans on the political calendar, with thousands of attendees packing a Washington-area conference center for days to hear from almost anyone who is anyone in the conservative political orbit. President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and several Cabinet-level Trump administration officials all spoke this year.Republican Representative Paul Gosar, a dentist by trade from Arizona who had extended contact with the person at CPAC, said in a statement that he will close his Washington office for a week. Gosar and three senior staff members will self-quarantine this week, with Gosar staying at home in Arizona.Gosar said that he and his staff are not experiencing any symptoms.Cruz, in his statement, said he had informed Vice President Mike Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and incoming White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows of the situation.Congress is scheduled to be in Washington this week, so both Cruz and Gosar would miss votes starting Monday. (Adds details on congressional vote schedule in final paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Derek Wallbank in Singapore at dwallbank@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Chua Baizhen at bchua14@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| America's housing crisis Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Millions of Americans can no longer dream of buying a home. Rental apartments are also unaffordable. Why? Here's everything you need to know:What's gone wrong? From cities to suburbs to rural America, the cost of housing has far outpaced increases in salaries. Home prices are growing at twice the rate of wages, and there are fewer houses on the market than in any year since 1982. The single-family house, with a garage and a front lawn, remains a bedrock of the American dream, even as it recedes from many people's reach. Young adults are one-third less likely to be homeowners than the previous generation was at the same age, and nearly two-thirds of renters say they can't afford a house. The median single-family house costs about $280,000, with demand driving prices at the lower end of the market to rise twice as fast as those of high-end homes. Once the backbone of U.S. wealth, housing has become a civic, economic, and environmental catastrophe.Is renting any better? It's even worse. Nearly half of renters are cost-burdened — meaning they spend at least 30 percent of their income on rent. Since 1960, renters' average earnings have increased 5 percent as rents have jumped 61 percent. Eleven million Americans spend more than half of their paycheck on rent. They have little choice: After 2011, more than 4 million units renting for $800 or less per month disappeared nationwide. In trendy cities like Seattle and Austin, older, multifamily buildings are being demolished or converted into condominiums and co-ops. A minuscule percentage of new apartments are low-rent. Today, a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a two-bedroom rental in precisely zero U.S. counties; on average, it would take clocking 127 hours a week at the federal minimum wage to make paying for one possible.Are expectations too high? After World War II, home ownership went from a luxurious status symbol to a national priority. "A nation of homeowners, of people who own a real share in their own land, is unconquerable," President Franklin Roosevelt said in 1942. Zoning changes helped create the suburbs, as did improved cars and new roads, enabling people to live farther from work. Mortgage markets developed, and the rate of homeownership grew from 43 percent in 1940 to 66 percent by 2000. The size of houses per resident also doubled in that period. It became conventional wisdom to borrow as much as possible, buy the biggest house attainable, and hold on as the property steadily grew in value. But that's no longer feasible for many people: In 1990, 18 months of the median local salary could buy a house in 72 of America's 100 largest cities, Harvard University found. Now that's possible in just 25 of them.What's jacking up costs? Demand, above all. Houses are supposed to pass between generations, but Baby Boomers are living longer and staying put. People are also moving less than ever, down to 10 percent of the population annually. After the recession, private-equity firms and hedge funds spent an estimated $36 billion on more than 200,000 homes in ailing markets, and their strategy was to evict current residents and target the ultrawealthy. In New York City, homeless shelters have been filling at the same time towering new luxury condos rise into the skyline. Since 2011, the average cost of a New York condo rocketed from $1.15 million to $3.77 million. Even more perversely, nearly half of Manhattan's new luxury condos are empty.Why not build more housing? The cost of land and building materials such as timber and steel keeps climbing, and there are major shortages of construction workers. That makes it financially unfeasible to build low-income housing. In San Francisco, where the median one-bedroom rental goes for $3,700 per month, it costs $700,000 to build a single new apartment unit. "In a lot of cities, the market can't supply housing for people making less than six figures," said James Madden, a Seattle-based affordable-housing developer. Even when developers do seek to build dense rental or condo units with affordable prices, they run into NIMBY — the "not in my back yard" attitude of existing residents who insist that new construction and new residents will disrupt their views, schools, parking, and property values.Can NIMBY be defeated? Government initiatives can only achieve so much without current homeowners making concessions. California is plagued by crippling housing costs and widespread homelessness, but recently the legislature narrowly failed to pass a law that would have overridden local zoning rules to allow high-density housing. NIMBY is on vivid display in Lafayette, Calif., a wealthy town of 25,000 outside San Francisco. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said the state must build 3.5 million homes by 2025 to ease the affordability crisis, yet Lafayette residents were outraged by a proposal to build 315 new apartment units near a commuter train station. When developers and the city manager, Steve Falk, agreed to a compromise of 44 single-family homes on the site, residents went to court to fight that too. Falk resigned, saying he couldn't oppose such a modest plan amid a massive housing crisis. "My conscience," Falk said, "won't allow it."The racial gap in home ownership Scarce housing is behind a surprising number of social problems. Transportation accounts for about one-third of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, and much of that is due to obscene commuting times in cities and suburbs with inadequate mass transit. (Four million Americans spend at least three hours every day driving to and from work.) There's a substantial racial gap among homeowners, with black and Hispanic Americans more than 25 percent less likely to own a home than whites. That gap, which is at least partly caused by redlining and racist lending policies, reinforces racial wealth disparities and impedes social mobility. The poor of all races are most affected by housing shortages and costs; by one estimate, there are now only 37 available affordable units for every 100 extremely poor households. In California, state lawmakers have allowed homeowners to convert garages into residential spaces and build small homes in their backyards, known as granny flats or casitas, that they can rent out. Ben Metcalf, the state's former director of Housing and Community Development, compares renting out parts of your property to growing "victory gardens" during World War II food shortages. "Your civic duty as a Californian," he said, "is you've got to convert your garage."This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, try the magazine for a month here.More stories from theweek.com Trump retweets White House photo of him fiddling, says he doesn't know 'what this means' Washington nursing home with coronavirus outbreak reported shocking escalation from 'no symptoms to death' Trump says doctors keep asking how he knows so much about the coronavirus
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| Rally held for girl brutally attacked by gang in Brooklyn Posted: 07 Mar 2020 03:52 PM PST  Police have charged five teenage boys in connection with a brutal gang assault and robbery caught on camera in Brooklyn.
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| Destroyers left behind: US Navy cancels plans to extend service lives of its workhorse DDGs Posted: 09 Mar 2020 07:16 AM PDT  The Navy is killing a plan to add 10 years to the hull life of its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
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| An Iowa girl was blinded and almost killed by the flu; now, she can see again Posted: 09 Mar 2020 10:48 AM PDT  An Iowa girl spent Christmas fighting to survive after a case of the flu hospitalized her and left her blind. Now, she has regained her sight.
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| Talking about a menstrual revolution: Asia's period problems Posted: 07 Mar 2020 06:10 PM PST  Olivia Cotes-James wants us to talk about menstrual health. No more euphemisms, no more opaque marketing, no more superstitions, and no glossing over cramps, bleeding, or pain: Reframing current attitudes is vital for female empowerment and health, as well as the environment, says the 29-year-old founder of LUÜNA Naturals, which hails itself as Asia's first period care company with an all-female leadership team.
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| Russia has been accused by the US of spreading conspiracy theories that coronavirus is a biological weapon created by the CIA, and now the UK has set up a unit to fight them Posted: 09 Mar 2020 04:45 AM PDT  Thousands of social-media accounts have been made to spread conspiracy theories that the novel coronavirus is a biological weapon created by the CIA.
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| Turkey's Babacan applies to launch new party, calls for more democracy Posted: 08 Mar 2020 10:39 PM PDT  A former close ally of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan applied on Monday to register a new political party to challenge his ruling AK Party, saying Turkey needed a "fresh start" and calling for reforms to strengthen the rule of law and democracy. Ali Babacan, a 52-year-old former deputy prime minister, announced last July he was resigning from the AKP over "deep differences" about its direction, and his announcement has been long-awaited. Babacan a founding member of the AKP, which has ruled Turkey since 2002, served as economy and then foreign minister before becoming deputy prime minister, a role he held from 2009 to 2015.
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| SpaceX cargo ship hooks up with space station Posted: 08 Mar 2020 07:10 PM PDT  SpaceX completes its initial space station cargo contract and gears up for follow-on missions.
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| James Biden’s health care ventures face a growing legal morass Posted: 09 Mar 2020 01:30 AM PDT  A mysterious FBI raid. New allegations from former executives. Questions are swirling about the business dealings of Joe Biden's brother.
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| Women's rights activists attacked, arrested on International Women's Day Posted: 08 Mar 2020 07:09 AM PDT 
They came to stage a march of solidarity against violence on International Women's Day. But instead women's rights activists in Kyrgyzstan were themselves attacked, before dozens were detained by police. The protesters were gathered in one of the capital Bishkek's squares on Sunday (March 8) when masked men, some of whom wore traditional Kyrgyz white felt hats, attacked and tore apart their banners. This woman says eggs where thrown at them and they were physically assaulted. The men left when police arrived but the ordeal was not over. Officers then detained around 50 activists, mostly women. It was unclear what charges they could face; the Bishkek police department could not be immediately reached for comment. Citing multiple cases of forced marriage and domestic violence, activists say women's rights are deteriorating in the former Soviet republic amid a resurgence of right-wing ideology.
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| Washington nursing home with coronavirus outbreak reported shocking escalation from 'no symptoms to death' Posted: 09 Mar 2020 08:01 AM PDT  The epicenter of Washington state's coronavirus outbreak has a disturbing status update.Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, outside of Seattle, has seen 15 of its residents die after contracting COVID-19, and dozens of its workers haven fallen ill. The center's remaining 55 residents are going to be tested for the virus, and while only six of them are currently sick, that doesn't necessarily mean good news, The New York Times reports.As the Times put it, Life Care "had seen some residents go from no symptoms to death in just a matter of a few hours." "It was surprising and shocking to us that we have seen that level of escalation from symptoms to death," said Tim Killian, a spokesperson for the nursing home. Efforts to contain the spread from Life Care aren't going well either, seeing as 70 of the center's 180 workers were out sick as of Sunday, but "there weren't enough test kits yet for them," the Times reports. Three of those workers had been hospitalized, and one of them tested positive for COVID-19.It's important to note Washington state has reported just three deaths from the new coronavirus that weren't tied to the nursing home. Life Care is home to people who are elderly or recovering from illnesses, so those who died likely had weaker immune systems and were more susceptible to COVID-19. "Kids and adults have done extremely well in terms of recovery so far," Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine doctor at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, notes to ABC News.Washington has second highest number of both COVID-19 deaths and cases among all U.S. states, while New York has 142 cases and zero deaths.More stories from theweek.com Trump retweets White House photo of him fiddling, says he doesn't know 'what this means' Trump says doctors keep asking how he knows so much about the coronavirus Pete Buttigieg is going to be a late-night talk show host for a day
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| France bans gatherings of more than 1,000 people over coronavirus concerns, with exceptions for protests and public transit Posted: 08 Mar 2020 02:28 PM PDT  The French minister of health announced the ban Sunday out of an abundance of caution over the spread of the coronavirus, with some exceptions.
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| Russia steps in to support tumbling ruble Posted: 09 Mar 2020 03:50 AM PDT  The Russian ruble tumbled Monday to a four-year low amid a crash in oil prices as authorities rushed to assure the public the country has accumulated enough funds to withstand the blow. Shares in Russian companies including oil giant Rosneft and Sberbank lender also plunged in London -- the Moscow Stock Exchange was closed for a public holiday Monday. The Russian Central Bank and the finance ministry on Monday quickly announced measures aimed at stabilising the ruble to ensure financial stability.
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| EU seeks to tackle coronavirus as Italy locks down north, prisoners riot Posted: 09 Mar 2020 04:37 AM PDT  EU leaders will seek a coordinated response to the coronavirus after global markets plunged on Monday and Italy sealed off much of its industrial north, where six prisoners were killed in a riot over curbs on visits. Joining the global rout, triggered by a 22% slump in oil prices, Wall Street's main share indexes dropped 7% and the Dow Jones Industrials crashed 2,000 points - which would be its biggest ever one-day ever if there is no recovery by the close. European Union leaders will hold a teleconference to discuss their next moves, European Council president Charles Michel said, with one official saying the call was likely to take place on Tuesday.
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| Trump claims he had no idea people die of influenza despite his grandfather dying from the virus Posted: 07 Mar 2020 01:03 PM PST  President Donald Trump made the claim when speaking about the flu that he had no clue people could die from the virus - despite it taking the life of his grandfather.Mr Trump's claim came while he was in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday to visit the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters and meet with health officials about the coronavirus.
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| Joe Biden Owes Clarence Thomas an Apology Posted: 09 Mar 2020 03:30 AM PDT  On the day Chuck Schumer was threatening Supreme Court justices in front of pack of a cheering partisans, Representative Ayanna Pressley told the same crowd, "We have two alleged sexual predators on the bench of the highest court of the land, with the power to determine our reproductive freedoms. I still believe Anita Hill. And I still believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford!"Now, it is far more accurate to call Hill a "disgraced accuser" than Clarence Thomas an "alleged sexual predator." Not a single person — and Thomas had scores of subordinates working for him during his years in government — ever corroborated Hill's description of Thomas's actions. Nor has single person ever accused Thomas of any similar behavior in his 30-plus years as a justice. Twelve former female colleagues of both Thomas and Hill signed an affidavit supporting Thomas, while not a single person who worked with both vouched for Hill.Unlike Blasey Ford, whose nebulous and unverifiable accusations were decades old, Hill's allegations were a potential criminal matter. So the FBI investigated Hill's claims — though they found her reluctant to cooperate — and failed to uncover any evidence to substantiate the accusations. After the hearings, agents sent affidavits to the Senate accusing Hill of misleading them and the public, skipping portions of her story, and offering testimony that contradicted what she had told law-enforcement officials. This part of the story rarely gets mentioned when the media recount her supposed heroics.And though it isn't particularly important in proving or disproving the veracity of her statements, most people didn't believe Anita Hill at the time, either:> At every point in the final polls, a plurality or majority of black Americans supported the nomination. In the final Gallup/CNN poll (conducted on October 14, 1991), 69 percent said they would like to see the Senate vote in favor of confirming him. Differences by gender were modest throughout, on the confirmation vote. In the final CNN/Gallup poll, 57 percent of women said the Senate should vote in favor, 31 percent said it should not, and 12 percent were unsure.Accusing Thomas and Kavanaugh of being "alleged sexual predators" -- which, incidentally, suggests something even worse than Hill's accusation -- is a politically motivated slander. It is meant to undercut the authority of the court and to intimidate justices (and future nominees) who take the "wrong" side on the issue of life. For contemporary Democrats, the court exists primarily to safeguard the only constitutional "right" that really matters to them anymore: abortion.In that regard, it's curious to see presidential hopeful Joe Biden, who has spent 40 years shifting his abortion position to appease the base of his party, being dragged by progressives for failing to give Hill the unrestrained ability to destroy Thomas back in 1991. After all, it was Biden who helped turn Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into nasty, hyper-politicized smear-fests that set the precedent for the Kavanaugh hearing.In 1986, the year before Biden was lifted to chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Antonin Scalia had been approved 98–0 by the Senate. There weren't really any Supreme Court confirmation battles before then. A year later, in 1987, Robert Bork -- who, Warren Burger, the former chief justice, claimed was the most qualified jurist he'd seen in 50 years -- would be grossly caricatured by real-life sexual harasser Ted Kennedy, who warned that "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids." Thomas would be accused of being a puppet of his white colleagues, among other racist stereotypes, merely for his ideological outlook. In those days, hyperbolic statements from Senators were somewhat rare. Now they are a modus operandi.To be fair to Biden, he was an exceptionally incompetent and indecisive chairman, easily cowed and unable to control the hearings. After promising to support Bork, he switched his vote. After promising to afford Thomas some semblance of due process, he presided over what the future justice famously called a "high-tech lynching."Biden now claims to regret that he "couldn't come up with a way" to give Hill "the kind of hearing she deserved." What does Biden think Hill deserved? Without any supporting evidence, the Senate gave her the opportunity to make her case. She was given enormous coverage by the media when her allegations emerged -- leaked to the press, most likely by Democrats -- despite the obvious problems with her story from the start. No one ever stopped Hill from telling that story. Hill still tells her story. Hill wrote a book telling her story. There are hagiographic movies and documentaries about her story. Even today, journalists interview her without a hint of journalistic skepticism.Sensing that the issue might be problematic, Biden called Hill last year to apologize. Hill, a professor, wasn't impressed, saying, "I will be satisfied when I know that there is real change and real accountability and real purpose." Or, in other words, the patriarchy must unilaterally surrender to the poetic truth, rather than to the evidence -- or, in Hill's case, to a lack of it.If Biden should apologize to anyone, it's Clarence Thomas. Or maybe the American people, for allowing judicial confirmation hearings to be turned into partisan-fueled character assassinations, weaponized to destroy the legitimacy of the Supreme Court -- all in the service of nothing more noble than the killing of the unborn.
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| Police in Oregon say a man robbed a doughnut shop with a hatchet. He was found eating a doughnut. Posted: 08 Mar 2020 07:25 PM PDT  Police arrested Christopher James, 40, after he allegedly robbed a doughnut shop with a hatchet and was found a block away eating a doughnut.
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| Iwo Jima hero, 96, sees US warship commissioned in his honor Posted: 08 Mar 2020 03:29 PM PDT |
| Prince Andrew won't voluntarily cooperate in Epstein inquiry, prosecutor says Posted: 09 Mar 2020 09:51 AM PDT  Despite public offer to help with investigation Andrew has 'completely shut the door', and New York attorney general is now considering other optionsPrince Andrew has "completely shut the door" on cooperating with US investigators in the Jeffrey Epstein case and they are now "considering" further options, a New York prosecutor said on Monday.Andrew was a friend of Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender whose death in custody while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in New York last year was ruled a suicide.Andrew denies all claims of sexual misconduct relating to the Epstein case but has stepped back from public duties as a result of his connection to it.Speaking to reporters on Monday, Manhattan US attorney Geoffrey Berman said: "Contrary to Prince Andrew's very public offer to cooperate with our investigation into Epstein's co-conspirators, an offer that was conveyed via press release, Prince Andrew has now completely shut the door on voluntary cooperation and our office is considering its options."In November, Andrew said he was "willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations if required".Berman made a similar claim in January, which former sex crimes prosecutors told the Guardian was most likely a move designed to win political support for the investigation.Buckingham Palace said then it would not comment and the matter was being dealt with by the prince's legal team. Contacted on Monday, the Palace repeated that statement.Andrew has been accused of having sex with a young woman provided by Epstein, a claim he categorically denies.In a December interview with the BBC, the accuser, Virginia Giuffre, now 35, called Andrew's denial "BS"."He knows what happened," she said. "I know what happened, and there's only one of us telling the truth, and I know that's me."The Guardian has reported that according to flight logs, Andrew was among nine people on Epstein's plane for a trip from the US Virgin Islands to Florida in February 1999.A lawsuit filed by the US territory's attorney general in January cites new evidence that Epstein "held captive underage girls" there as recently as 2018.
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| The U.S. doesn't have enough ICU beds or ventilators to deal with even a moderate coronavirus outbreak Posted: 09 Mar 2020 06:59 AM PDT  While the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have refrained from calling the new coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, CNN started referring to it as such on Monday. And although that should not "cause panic," it does mean the U.S. needs to shore up its medical resources before things get worse, CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta explained in a Monday article.So far around the world we've seen 100,000 cases and 3,000 deaths from COVID-19, and in Gupta's opinion, that fits the CDC's definition of pandemic as "an epidemic that has spread over several countries or continents, usually affecting a large number of people." And while the government isn't using that word yet, it is admitting that coronavirus spread is a question of not if, but when.Looking at how COVID-19 affected China can provide a preview of what it'll look like in the U.S. In China, "around 80 percent of those infected with the coronavirus had symptoms of a bad cold and are expected to recover. Another 14 percent became severely ill, and 5 percent became critically ill," Gupta writes. So according to estimates from the Department of Health and Human Services, that translates to about 200,000 people needing intensive care in the case of a moderate outbreak. That could be a big problem, seeing as the U.S. has less than 100,000 ICU beds.An estimated 64,000 people will also need ventilators in a moderate outbreak, CNN reports, but the U.S. only has about 62,000 of those machines ready to go. It has another 8,900 in its national stockpile, but "given that this is flu season, many of those are already in use," Gupta writes. Read more about the preparedness problem at CNN.More stories from theweek.com Trump retweets White House photo of him fiddling, says he doesn't know 'what this means' Washington nursing home with coronavirus outbreak reported shocking escalation from 'no symptoms to death' Trump says doctors keep asking how he knows so much about the coronavirus
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