Brexit Britain Fails at First Step: Its Farewell Party

LONDON—So, this is it. After 47 years of membership, Britain is finally leaving the European Union on Friday. It may have taken 1,316 days of screaming at each other since the referendum, and claimed the careers of two prime ministers, but at 11 p.m. the 17 million people who voted for Brexit three years ago will, for better or worse, get what they asked for.Now, given that all through the 2016 campaign, pro-Brexit campaigners spent their time casting the EU as a sinister, overreaching superstate that had shackled Britain’s potential for decades, you might assume that tonight’s historic strike of the clock would spark wild celebrations. Millions draped in Union Jacks, screaming Rule Britannia, and weeping warm, joyous tears into their even warmer pints of thick beige ale.But, despite the best efforts of some of the most wild-eyed foot-soldiers of the Brexit campaign, tonight’s landmark will pass without any great fanfare. If you voted to remain, there’s obviously nothing to celebrate. If you voted to leave, the vast majority had their moment of jubilation on the night of the referendum three-and-a-half years ago, but their enthusiasm has since suffered death by a thousand BBC News push alerts.There have been attempts to create a national moment—but they have, without fail, been totally crap. Take Nigel Farage’s exit from the European Parliament earlier this week, which is a moment he’s dreamed of throughout his entire political career. His grand gesture was to make a speech while his Brexit Party colleagues waved tiny plastic Union flags around him. The parliament’s speaker simply cut off his mic, leaving him voiceless, in a perfect metaphor for Britain’s future in Europe.A day later, in his continuing quest to give Brexit week some form of gravitas, the modest Farage attended the unveiling of a portrait of himself which was entitled “Mr. Brexit.” The unveiling was hosted by former game-show host Jim Davidson, who hasn’t been allowed to appear on mainstream television for decades due to his propensity for making extremely terrible jokes about women, ethnic minorities, and disabled people.The official government-backed attempts to mark Brexit have fallen similarly flat. Firstly, a commemorative 50 pence coin was minted with the slogan, written in the kind of font that might be used for a menu of homeopathic treatments: “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations.”Philip Pullman, the author of His Dark Materials, led calls for a boycott of the coin for failing to include an Oxford comma, while others said they would refuse to accept it in their change or deface it with pro-EU messages. If this was the government’s big gesture to bring the bitterly divided country back together, it would have been just as effective to throw an existing 50p coin into a wishing well.There was also an extremely embarrassing campaign, announced and then disowned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to crowdfund for Big Ben—the bell in parliament’s famous clock tower—to be temporarily restored to action during a refurbishment to bong loudly for the Brexit moment. More than £250,000 was raised to fund the effort, but that was only half of what was needed to get the bell working by Friday, so the idea was abandoned.(Incidentally, if you’re wondering why Britain is leaving the EU at 11 p.m. local time rather than midnight, it’s because that is midnight in Brussels, the de facto capital of the EU, and it gets to decide these kind of things now.)There will, however, be a light show in Westminster to mark Brexit, and Johnson is reportedly due to give what has been billed as a “special” address to the nation on Friday evening. The government has also announced that “in response to public calls, the Union Jack will be flown on all of the flag poles in Parliament Square,” which is sure to be spectacular.Unofficial celebrations will, of course, take place in some parts of the country where the vote to leave was at its strongest in 2016. A photograph circulated on Twitter this week that purported to show a pub notice for a “Brexit Party” on Friday night, where only British food be served and British music played, which sounds good if you like the sound of “Wonderwall” being sung by men chewing gray meat.A nationwide chain of cheap-and-cheerful pubs, Wetherspoons, is marking the day by slashing the prices of drinks made in European countries, which the company’s pro-Brexit CEO claims is his gesture to show that he wants Britain to remain friends with the EU after Friday night.On Saturday, Britain will wake up, for the first time in nearly five decades, outside a European group of nations. Once the hangovers clear, and the people responsible for Brexit stop congratulating themselves for vaulting the first and smallest hurdle, the actual work begins to prove that leaving the EU was something worth celebrating.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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Bipartisan senators essentially ask Trump to promise he'll never do this again

So maybe it wasn't the best choice to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine. Well, let's just make sure it doesn't happen again, a group of bipartisan senators seemed to say during Thursday's Senate impeachment trial.The second day of impeachment questioning from senators brought the first inquiry from a bipartisan group: Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Kirsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). "Will the president assure the American public that private citizens will not be directed to conduct American foreign policy or national security policy unless they have been specifically and formally designated by the president and the State Department to do so?" they asked, essentially asking that Trump's future envoys have further permission to do their jobs.It's an obvious reference to the fact that Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to push for Trump's agenda — something Trump insists he didn't tell Giuliani to do. Trump's lawyer Patrick Philbin similarly claimed Giuliani wasn't conducting foreign policy. House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) then pointed out impeachment witness Fiona Hill called Giuliani's work a "domestic political errand," and then concluded Philbin had just confirmed Hill's assessment.More stories from theweek.com Mitch McConnell's rare blunder John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi All the president's turncoats

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An emergency UK flight out of Wuhan has been canceled, leaving 200 Britons and their families stranded in quarantine

A total of 130 people had been screened for the Wuhan coronavirus in the UK. So far, there have been no confirmed cases.

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U.S. Rejects Obamacare Work-Around Sought by Republican States

(Bloomberg) -- A health insurance venture that threatened to erode Obamacare and had the backing of seven Republican state attorneys general has been rejected by the U.S. Labor Department.The proposal, from an obscure company in Georgia that was the subject of a Bloomberg News article last month, won the support of states including Georgia and Louisiana, whose attorney general personally pitched it last year to senior White House officials. Among those pushing for the plan was a Washington lobbying firm whose senior adviser is Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s onetime campaign manager.The initiative would allow LP Management Services to create a data-sharing partnership that small firms could join; after agreeing to provide online user data, those in the network could then pay full premiums to buy into LP Management’s health insurance.Read More: Manafort Mystery Lender’s Next Act Is an Obamacare End RunBut in a highly technical advisory ruling, the Labor Department said on Jan. 24 that those joining the venture wouldn’t be “bona fide partners” and “do not work for or through the partnership.”“The DOL is turning LP Management down,” said Timothy Jost, a health-law expert at Washington and Lee University.Several health policy specialists who reviewed the plan for Bloomberg News said LP Management’s plan, if approved, could undermine the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, by allowing insurers to cherry-pick their policyholders. The plan’s supporters deny that.The ruling could scuttle the venture because potential partners won’t join a health-insurance program that lacks the Labor Department’s blessing, experts said. A lawyer behind the plan, Alexander Renfro, said LP Management would seek approval through a pending lawsuit.“We are disappointed that after 14 months of ignoring our request, and four days before they were required to respond to our lawsuit, the DOL has rushed out an opinion that violates its own rules, ignores the facts presented, and rewrites existing statutes and regulations without a legal basis to do so,” he said in an email.One executive involved in the health initiative is Arjan “Ari” Zieger, a California man who made a mysterious $1 million loan in 2017 to Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Zieger’s lawyer has said the loan had nothing to do with the insurance venture.Companies Zieger helps run have spent about $400,000 to lobby the Trump administration on behalf of the plan.Emails to the attorneys general of Georgia and Louisiana weren’t immediately returned.To contact the reporter on this story: David Glovin in New York at dglovin@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey D Grocott at jgrocott2@bloomberg.net, David S. Joachim, Joe SchneiderFor 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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DNC overhauls debate requirements, opening door for Bloomberg

The committee is eliminating the donor threshold, which had functionally barred Bloomberg from the stage.

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In Egypt, 12-year-old girl dies after genital mutilation

A 12-year-old girl died this week in southern Egypt after her parents brought her to a doctor who performed female genital mutilation, a criminal practice that remains widespread in the region, according to a judicial statement. The girl's death in the province of Assiut prompted Egypt's public prosecutor to order the arrests of her parents and the physician who preformed the procedure, also known as female circumcision, said the statement released late Thursday by the prosecutor's office. Since the mid-1990s, Egypt has been battling the centuries-old practice, which is misguidedly believed to control women's sexuality.

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How $98 trillion of household wealth in America is distributed

If a pie represented the wealth in the United States, nine pieces, or 90% of the pie, would go to the wealthiest 20% in the country.

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Former GOP senator warns if witnesses are 'suppressed,' it could cause 'lasting damage to the Senate'

Former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) is encouraging Republican senators to vote in favor of calling witnesses in President Trump's impeachment trial.Warner, 92, served in the Senate for 30 years. He said in a statement Thursday night he is "mindful of the difficult responsibilities those currently serving now shoulder. I believe, as I am sure you do, that not only is the president on trial, but in many ways so is the Senate itself. As such, I am strongly supportive of the efforts of my former Republican Senate colleagues who are considering that the Senate accept the introduction of additional evidence that they deem relevant."It wasn't so long ago that "senators of both major parties always worked to accommodate fellow colleagues with differing points of view to arrive at outcomes that would best serve the nation's interests," Warner said. "If witnesses are suppressed in this trial and a majority of Americans are left believing the trial was a sham, I can only imagine the lasting damage done to the Senate, and to our fragile national consensus."He went on to "respectfully urge the Senate to be guided by the rules of evidence and follow our nation's judicial norms, precedents, and institutions to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law by welcoming relevant witnesses and documents as part of the impeachment trial." The senators will vote Friday on whether to allow additional witnesses, and Democrats need four Republicans to join them in order to open that door.More stories from theweek.com Mitch McConnell's rare blunder John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi All the president's turncoats

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Putin Frees Israeli Backpacker, Helping Embattled Netanyahu

(Bloomberg) -- President Vladimir Putin’s pardon of an Israeli woman imprisoned in Russia on drug-smuggling charges gave a much-needed electoral gift to visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Naama Issachar, 26, was released Thursday from a prison outside of Moscow, according to Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service. She was arrested in April and sentenced in October to 7 1/2 years for carrying a small amount of hashish on a transit flight via Moscow after a backpacking trip to India.Putin pardoned Issachar late Wednesday. He had previously rebuffed Netanyahu’s appeals for her release and his about-face couldn’t have been timed better for the premier, who’s battling fraud and bribery charges ahead of March elections. The Israeli leader flew to Moscow from Washington, where he attended the unveiling of the U.S. Middle East peace plan, whose heavy tilt in Israel’s direction also favored his campaign.Netanyahu said Russian-Israeli relations were the strongest in history as he thanked Putin at a Kremlin meeting, where the two men were due to discuss President Donald Trump’s new initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The prime minister’s Twitter account later posted footage of him greeting a smiling Issachar and her mother, Yaffa, at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport. His plane later departed for Israel with the Issachars on board. A Kremlin foreign policy aide said earlier this month that Israel and Russia had made progress in settling a dispute over the ownership of Russian Orthodox Church property in Jerusalem, which Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said could form part of a quid pro quo to secure Issachar’s release. The property wasn’t mentioned in public statements in Moscow on Thursday.Yaffa Issachar asked the Russian leader in November to pardon her daughter in a letter handed to him by Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. Last week, she met with Putin in Jerusalem, where the president attended an international forum on the Holocaust on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Red Army’s liberation of the Nazi Auschwitz death camp.Toughest BattleEarlier this week, Netanyahu was standing next to Trump and praising his peace plan as a “historic” opportunity to annex swaths of West Bank territory. With Issachar’s release -- she’ll be flying back home with him on his plane, Israeli media reported -- he now has another triumph to brandish as he faces the toughest battle of his political life.Victory eluded him in two inconclusive elections last year, and he’s started framing the March 2 vote as a contest between a prime minister burnishing Israel’s security, economy and global standing, and the inexperience of former military chief Benny Gantz, a political novice.His campaign also showcases Israel’s recent natural gas deals with Egypt and Jordan, for which he takes credit.As of late Wednesday, Netanyahu’s achievements hadn’t pushed his Likud party past Gantz’s Blue and White bloc in the polls, though neither man is expected to have enough support to form a majority government and break Israel’s political stalemate.(Updates with Issachar departing Russia in fifth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Henry Meyer, Alex Sazonov and Jake Rudnitsky.To contact the reporters on this story: Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net;Yaacov Benmeleh in Moscow at ybenmeleh@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Paul AbelskyFor 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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Colombia rejects Venezuelan proposal to resume diplomatic relations

Colombia rejected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's proposal that the two countries resume diplomatic relations on Thursday, amid a dispute over a fugitive former Colombian congresswoman who was captured in Venezuela. Maduro abruptly cut diplomatic relations with neighboring Colombia last February after Colombian President Ivan Duque helped Venezuelan opposition politicians deliver humanitarian aid to their crisis-stricken country.

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Thai holiday over, Chinese visitors fly home to Wuhan

The holiday was over for almost 80 Chinese visitors to Thailand. Wuhan has been under tight lockdown as Chinese authorities seek to contain further spread of the virus. The virus outbreak has attached a measure of fear and loathing to the city's name, as was demonstrated Friday when another group of Chinese tourists at the airport was asked whether they were the ones waiting for the flight to Wuhan.

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Remain in Mexico: 80% of migrants in Trump policy are victims of violence

Asylum seekers sent to Mexico to wait US court hearings under Trump scheme routinely targeted for abduction, survey findsA staggering 80% of asylum seekers sent to Mexico to await US court hearings report being victims of violence, according a survey by Doctors Without Borders (MSF).In one month – October – three-quarters of asylum seekers seen by MSF physicians in Nuevo Laredo reported having been kidnapped for ransom, according to the figures released on Wednesday.Some 44% of MSF patients also reported having been victims of violence in the week leading up to their consultations.Wednesday marked the first anniversary of a scheme officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), under which migrants seeking asylum in the United States are sent to Mexico to wait as their cases wind their way through US courts.Under the scheme, also known as “remain in Mexico”, more than 57,000 non-Mexican asylum seekers have been sent to wait in cities along the border – many of which have been plagued by drug-war violence for years.Migrants – who stand out because of their appearance and accents – are routinely targeted for abduction outside migration offices and bus terminals, and held until relatives back home wire ransom payments to the kidnappers.“The US continues to send asylum seekers back into danger and into the hands of the cartels that control the migration routes in Mexico,” said Sergio Martín, MSF general coordinator in Mexico.“The Mexican government lacks the ability to provide the most minimum of conditions for thousands of people who are being sent to its territory,” he said.Migrants are at risk along the entire border, “but mainly in places like Nuevo Laredo, where there is serious violence – and migrants are ‘merchandise’ for organised crime,” Martín said.Nuevo Laredo is considered so insecure that the US government has issued a Level 4: “Do not travel” alert to its citizens for the city and surrounding state of Tamaulipas – the same as war-torn countries like Syria and Afghanistan.The Cartel del Noreste – an offshoot of the blood thirsty Zetas cartel – “operates a sophisticated kidnapping business that targets asylum seekers – many of whom are women and children – who enter the city,” said Stephanie Leutert, director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the Strauss Center at the University of Texas.“The kidnappers charge several thousand dollars for each kidnapped asylum seeker and operate with almost complete impunity.”The Mexican government promised to provide asylum seekers with shelter, work permits and access to health services, but observers say many of the migrants have been left to fend for themselves.On Wednesday, the US department of homeland security announced that the scheme would be expanded to include Brazilians. Brazilian arrivals at the border have tripled in the past year.

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What’s Impeachable? Nothing, Republicans Seem to Say

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Get Jonathan Bernstein’s newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe.The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump moved to questions from senators on Wednesday. It wasn’t an encouraging day.The president’s lawyers moved closer than ever to simply embracing the idea that the president can do whatever he wants. Alan Dershowitz even went so far as to argue that since presidents always think that their re-election is in the national interest, they cannot be legitimately impeached for any use of their powers of office to aid that re-election. This would have been good news for President Richard Nixon. And surprising news to pretty much everyone throughout U.S. history. It appears more and more that even if the House managers serving as the impeachment prosecutors are eventually allowed to call one or more witnesses, the trial will end after establishing the principles that the president may use the powers of the office any way he or she wishes to without constraint, and that presidents will no longer have any legal obligation to submit to congressional oversight. That said, future Congresses will still have plenty of weapons to use to fight back against presidential misbehavior. And it’s true that impeachment has never been a particularly strong congressional weapon. But now it will be weaker. Presidents will be emboldened, and the norm that the president’s party will exercise absolute fealty to the Oval Office, which has been building since the 1980s, will be even further strengthened. The Republican Party, meanwhile, has fully surrendered to its least responsible members; not just Trump, but the worst of the House Freedom Caucus and its allies in the Republican-aligned media. There was a defense of the president available that involved accepting the overwhelming evidence that he had tried to use the powers of his office to force the government of Ukraine to help his 2020 re-election campaign, and declaring it not quite up to the level of impeachment and removal. Instead, the president’s team, with the support of most Republican senators and the apparent willingness of the rest to go along, staked out wild constitutional positions, used their time to throw mud (including flat-out falsehoods) at former Vice President Joe Biden and anyone else who gets in their way, and generally disgrace themselves. The House managers did not respond in kind. Indeed, when one Democratic senator invited them to attack Trump’s children, manager Val Demings, a representative from Florida, dismissed the question and asked everyone to stick to the topic at hand. (Immediately after which Trump’s lawyers resumed their attack on Biden’s son). I do wonder whether the House managers have made the right choice in putting so much emphasis on hearing from witnesses. It’s true, as I noted at the start of the trial, that the question of witnesses polls well, and it puts pressure on Republicans up for re-election later this year. But it’s also true that every minute House managers spend on the question of witnesses and other procedural issues is a minute they’re not spending making the case for what Trump did wrong and why it matters. They have, of course, spent time on that as well. Not, however, as much as they could have if they had spent less time on the other fight.Most senators used their opportunity to ask questions to instead give their partisan side a chance to repeat talking points. A few — notably Mitt Romney of Utah — did ask serious questions. I’m not inclined to judge senators harshly for that; it’s not as if tough questions to the opposite trial team would force errors and break things open. At any rate, it appears likely that the trial will end by Friday or, in what appears now to be the unlikely event that four Republicans join the Democrats in calling a small number of witnesses, soon after. And then we’ll all see what a Trump freed from the fear of impeachment will be like. I suspect it isn’t going to be pretty.1\. Lynn Vavreck and Chris Tausanovitch on ideology and Democratic voters.2\. Sarah Binder at the Monkey Cage on the politics of calling former National Security Adviser John Bolton as a witness. 3\. Also at the Monkey Cage: Dan Hopkins on Ezra Klein’s book, “Why We’re Polarized.”4\. Julia Azari considers a Bernie Sanders presidency. 5\. Matt Grossmann talks with Lee Drutman and Jack Santucci about multiparty politics in the U.S.6\. Pema Levy on electability and women running for president.7\. NBC News has a terrific resource on the history of the Iowa caucuses.8\. And Ryan Goodman looks at the obituaries of House Judiciary Committee Republicans from 1974. Fascinating.Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close.To contact the author of this story: Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonathan Landman at jlandman4@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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7,000 People Trapped on Mediterranean Cruise in Italy Over Suspected Coronavirus Case

ROME—More than 7,000 people were quarantined on an Italian cruise ship in the Mediterranean port of Civitavecchia outside of Rome after a Chinese woman from Hong Kong came down with a fever and symptoms that mimic the coronavirus. Initial tests seemed to exclude the deadly virus, according to Italian media, but passengers were expected to be kept onboard overnight as a precaution. A second round of tests late Thursday completely excluded contagion, and Italy’s health authorities gave the green light for passengers to disembark. But as of Thursday evening, the mayor of Civitavecchia refused to authorize any passengers to get off the ship. Tourism operators, suddenly confronted with a new nightmare scenario tied to the virus, scrambled to address fears of an outbreak on a cruise ship. “We have no information, the internet inside the ship isn’t working, and we can’t get news. But above all we take meals together in the common areas, and we don’t know if someone is infected,” Liborio Iervolino, a cruise passenger from Puglia said. ‘There are no disposable dishes and in the rooms, the televisions only broadcast advertisements. We would like to see the news and understand what is happening.”The Costa Smerelda, the fifth-largest cruise ship in the world and the flagship of an Italian company best known for the 2011 crash of the Costa Concordia on Tuscan island of Giglio, departed from Savona, Italy, on Jan. 25 with 6,000 passengers and 1,000 crew onboard. The massive, 19-deck vessel made stops in Marseilles, Barcelona, and Palma de Mallorca before docking in Civitavecchia on Thursday. It was scheduled to return to Savona for the Feb. 1 end of the cruise. But passengers who had lined up for a Rome excursion or to disembark at its penultimate stop were told to stay on the ship after medics in full hazmat suits boarded the vessel Thursday morning to check on a female Chinese patient in her fifties who was in the ship’s hospital. The woman, along with her asymptomatic husband and the medical team who treated her during the voyage, are being held in isolation on the ship. Samples from the woman were sent to the Lazzaro Spallanzani infectious disease hospital in Rome to be tested. Citizens of the port town of Civitavecchia have gone to the port to protest the disembarkation of 1,143 passengers whose voyage was scheduled to end in their town. “All the protocols are being followed and we will keep the case constantly monitored,” Civitavecchia’s mayor, Ernesto Tedesco, told worried citizens as he threatened to sue the cruise company if they disembarked before the full test results were back.The Costa company confirmed to The Daily Beast that the couple were among more than 750 Chinese or Hong Kong passengers on the voyage. Of those, 351 embarked on Jan. 25 in Savona along with the sick passenger, while others got on at the ship’s various ports of call in Spain and France. The couple arrived in Italy for the Jan. 25 embarkation on a flight from Hong Kong to Milan’s Malpensa airport, which means if the woman is confirmed to have the virus, health officials will then begin tracing anyone who flew with her, since the virus can be contagious even before symptoms show. A Costa representative would not confirm when the woman first reported being sick.“The situation is under control and at the moment there are no reasons for concern on board,” Italian Coast Guard Commander Vincenzo Leone said in a statement Thursday.Passengers reached by The Daily Beast via social media say they were not told directly that the woman was suspected of carrying the virus, but were told to alert crew members if they were sick with fever or respiratory conditions. Several passengers have tweeted that they should have been told earlier in the voyage that they might be at risk. Many complained that they were not given face masks or rubber gloves to prevent infection.Teens Are Now Claiming They Have Coronavirus for Tik Tok CloutRead 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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North Korea says it has intensified efforts to block virus

North Korea is intensifying efforts to prevent the spread of a new virus from China into the isolated country by blocking tourists, reducing flights and mobilizing more screening efforts, a health official said Thursday. It has sickened thousands, most of them China, but South Korea has reported six cases.

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American trapped in Wuhan: Despite coronavirus, I won't evacuate without my wife and son

Because of the coronavirus outbreak, my newborn son can't get his citizenship paperwork. The U.S. government's response disappoints expats like me.

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Trump impeachment: John Bolton defends officials who testified against president in inquiry

A former top Trump official has defended leading witnesses who have testified against the US president in his impeachment inquiry, according to local media.John Bolton reportedly said the ex-members of the Trump administration “acted in the best interest of the country as they saw it” as Democrats push to hear his own testimony.

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U.S. envoy warns Palestinians against raising opposition to U.S. peace plan at U.N.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will speak in the U.N. Security Council in the next two weeks about the plan, Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour said on Wednesday, adding that he hoped the 15-member council would also vote on a draft resolution on the issue.

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Pakistan: No immediate plans to evacuate citizens from China

A top Pakistani health official said Thursday that Islamabad had no immediate plan to evacuate any of some 30,000 nationals living in China to study and work, despite the new coronavirus that surfaced there. Zafar Mirza, who advises Prime Minister Imran Khan on health issues, told a news conference that so far only four Pakistani students in China have been diagnosed with the new virus and their conditions are listed as stable. China has been largely praised for its response to the outbreak.

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Mayor Pete’s South Bend Awarded No Major Contracts to Black-Owned Firms for Three Years

DES MOINES, Iowa—Of the many pledges that Pete Buttigieg has made in his as-yet unfruitful quest to earn the support of black voters, his guarantee that a quarter out of every federal contracting dollar will be awarded to minority- and women-owned businesses is one of his most ambitious. “Look at what it would be like if we were co-investing in promising businesses led by black entrepreneurs, start-ups and other kinds of businesses that have the best track record of creating the kind of employment that can help lift people up economically,” Buttigieg told BET in September. But an analysis of such spending during Buttigieg’s tenure as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, shows that the presidential hopeful fell dramatically short of that goal. According to a 2019 study analyzing the city’s contract data conducted by Colette Holt & Associates, a national law and consulting firm specializing in disparity studies, the city of South Bend did not award a major contract to a black-owned business for three straight years.The study found that from 2015 through 2017, the city of South Bend distributed $83,675,547 in contract dollars, roughly 12 percent of the city’s contracts, to businesses owned by racial and gender minorities—and none to a black-owned business, despite the study finding that there were more than 200 qualifying minority-owned firms in the market at the time.Minority-owned and women-owned businesses make up 15 percent of the market in the city, which means that while South Bend was close to achieving proportional awards for some categories, black-owned businesses continued to lag. While the city is more than 25 percent black by population, eligible black-owned contractors make up a mere 3.25 percent. More than 88 percent of contracts between 2015 and 2017 went to businesses not owned by women or racial minorities.At the same time, Buttigieg’s administration awarded numerous lucrative contracts to past campaign donors and to corporations whose lobbyists and executives had given to Buttigieg’s mayoral election efforts.One minority business owner told the study’s authors that South Bend employees “are trained to believe that black folks, poor people, or minorities can’t deliver,” and that she keeps her status as the owner of a minority-owned business under wraps because the “stigma” has kept her from winning contracts.“I really felt like [the city of South Bend] didn’t want me to have the job. It wasn’t because I wasn’t the best at what I do, because I am—it was just because they would say, ‘Well, you don’t need that much money,’ like, ‘You just a little black girl. You won't need that much money,’” she told the study’s authors. “Our problem is that people are trained to believe that black folks, poor people, or minorities can’t deliver… There’s a whole lot of black people in here that wanna do something, and somebody needs to see that.” Another black business owner said that the difficulty in obtaining South Bend city contracts had even led to some minority-owned businesses to go under.“There are black-owned construction companies, but one reason a lot of them that I talked to went out of business [is] because they can’t get contracts with the city,” the business owner said. “So, they can’t get any big contracts, then they have to try to build their business with only small ones, and it’s hard to maintain a cash flow with the other issues that you deal with.” The analysis, titled “The South Bend Disparity Study” and produced at Buttigieg’s behest, measured contracts and subcontracts worth $50,000 and up, and found a 72.38 percent disparity ratio for contract utilization of minority-owned business enterprises in the city. That ratio measures the participation of a group in contracting opportunities by dividing that group’s utilization by the availability of that group to participate in the contracting process.A disparity ratio of less than 100 indicates that a given group is utilized less than would be expected based on availability; a ratio of less than 80 percent has been presented by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as indicating a prima facie case of discrimination.Buttigieg’s poor track record on awarding city contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses has been reported before. In November 2019, shortly after his proposal mandating that the city award 15 percent of its contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses was passed through South Bend’s city council, the Intercept reported that Buttigieg had only awarded 3 percent of city contracts to black-owned businesses as mayor, citing annual audits conducted by the city.But the outside analysis by Colette Holt & Associates, revealing the eye-popping three-year stretch with zero contract awards to black-owned businesses, has not been reported, and comes at a moment when even Buttigieg’s most diehard fans are growing increasingly anxious that his statistically insignificant support among black registered voters represents an insurmountable obstacle to his electability.“It is a concern! It is a concern about the South—can he win in the South? Can he win the black vote?” June Schindler, a potential supporter, told The Daily Beast, at a Buttigieg town hall in Ottumwa on Tuesday. “It’s a concern.”Buttigieg’s campaign pointed to the small number of eligible black-owned firms in the region as a partial explanation for why South Bend lagged so far behind the former mayor’s Douglass Plan. In an interview with Charlamagne Tha God last week, Buttigieg explained that the disparity study was a painful but crucial step to understanding how the city would address the problem in the future.“We found out that we are below where we ought to be,” Buttigieg said, of the city’s contracts with black-owned firms. “That wasn’t a surprise, but now I had the legal power to do something about it.”While Buttigieg has touted the creation of a training program aimed at helping minority-owned and women-owned businesses apply for city contracts, the city was slow to improve the city’s designated official in charge of ensuring minority- and women-owned businesses were being included in the selection process. In 2014, Buttigieg’s office proposed cutting the hours for the city’s Diversity Compliance Officer position from 32 hours a week to 18 hours per week. At the time, members of the city’s Common Council expressed open concern that cutting the officer’s hours would undermine efforts to expand the number of contracts awarded to such businesses.“I don’t think 18 hours per week is going to be enough to support the goals of the ordinance,” said Valerie Schey, a Democrat on the council, in August 2014. “Even with a 32-hour workweek, the workload has been enormous.”The move would have saved the city roughly $18,000 per year.In 2016, that role was instead changed following the signing of an executive order by Buttigieg ordering the creation of South Bend’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion, a position intended to boost the number of contracts and subcontracts to minority- and women-owned businesses with the job description of “[leading] efforts to make hiring and management practices more inclusive, and city purchasing more diverse.”Christina Brooks, who served as South Bend’s first Diversity & Inclusion Officer until last year and hired the firm Colette Holt and Associates to conduct a disparity study, said in a statement that the shift in resources was critical for the city to understand how poor its history of awarding contracts to minority-owned businesses had been up to that point. “It wasn’t a priority for three decades until Pete shifted resources to really focus on this by creating a department that was intentional about supporting, creating, and sustaining women- and minority-owned businesses and building up capacity,” Brooks said.During the same three-year period that black-owned businesses received zero dollars in city contracts, South Bend did award plenty of city contracts to businesses owned by white men—including several generous political donors who had supported Buttigieg’s mayoral campaigns and his ill-fated run for Indiana state treasurer in 2010.Among the beneficiaries of city contracts include lobbyist Brad Queisser, whose lobbying firm, mCapitol, and its parent company, MWH, gave $2,000 in cash and an in-kind contribution of $2,577.82 to Buttigieg’s 2011 mayoral campaign. The firm was later contracted to lobby the federal government on South Bend’s behalf, and was paid $230,000 over the next three years for its lobbying work. In 2014, MWH was awarded a contract worth as much as $2 million by South Bend’s Board of Public Works to modernize the city’s sewers—a favorite achievement of Buttigieg’s. Four months later, it won an additional $430,000 in city contracts for its work on the system.Another lobbyist later hired to work on the city’s sewer plan was Thomas New, executive director of government affairs at the Indianapolis law firm Krieg DeVault. New, who had donated $1,500 to Buttigieg’s 2010 treasurer campaign, was later retained by the city to handle federal authorities on the plan.The Buttigieg campaign has explained in the past that both Queisser and New had been involved in city contract work and municipal politics long before Buttigieg first ran for mayor.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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Texas teen who won't cut locks receives $20K for college from Ellen DeGeneres

A black Texas teenager who was told that his dreadlocks violate his high school's dress code is gaining the support of some celebrities, plus $20,000 for college.

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So Long, Spitzer, You Were a Good Telescope and Friend

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Hungary to build more prisons to tackle overcrowding, halt inmates' lawsuits

Hungary will begin an ambitious prison-building program in an attempt to stem a tide of costly lawsuits by inmates complaining of overcrowding and inhumane conditions, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday. Orban accused "business-savvy lawyers" of exploiting the conditions to launch 12,000 lawsuits against the Hungarian state for breaking EU prison standards, leading to penalties of 10 billion forints ($33 million) in total. Orban, who has often come under fire from the European Union and rights groups over his perceived erosion of the rule of law since he took power in 2010, announced plans for more prisons to reduce the prison overcrowding and disarm "malignant lawyers".

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Fotis Dulos, who is accused of killing his wife, is in critical condition after an apparent suicide attempt

Farmington Police found Fotis Dulos unresponsive while conducting a welfare check Tuesday, after he failed to show up for a court date.

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Here's what the White House letter about Bolton's book really means

What appeared to be a White House bid to stop former national security adviser John Bolton from publishing his book, which may have explosive claims about his interactions with President Trump, is really just a standard letter regarding classification review, according to legal experts.

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Here are all the states where you have to register as a Democrat to vote in the presidential primary

In states with closed primaries, you must be registered as a Democrat to vote in the Democratic presidential primary.

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House Democrats’ Super Pac Raises $32.8 Million in Second Half

(Bloomberg) -- The super PAC that backs House Democrats raised $32.8 million in the second half of 2019 and ended the year with $37.7 million cash on hand, according to its filing with the Federal Election Commission.The biggest contribution to the House Majority PAC was from Michael Bloomberg, who gave $10 million in December. Bloomberg, who’s also spending hundreds of millions of dollars on his presidential campaign, is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.Longtime Democratic donor Fred Eychaner gave the super PAC $4 million, and hedge-fund operator S. Donald Sussman gave $2 million. Billionaire Haim Saban and real estate developer George Marcus each gave $1 million, while Joshua Bekenstein of Bain Capital gave $900,000.This post is part of Campaign Update, our live coverage from the 2020 campaign trail.To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Allison in Washington DC at ballison14@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max BerleyFor 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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‘You know your client is guilty’: Trump impeachment lawyer’s defence accused of being ‘descent into madness’

Senator Adam Schiff, lead impeachment manager in the Senate trial of Donald Trump, has called arguments made by the president’s defence team a “descent into constitutional madness”.Mr Schiff’s indignation with the president’s defence came in response to comments made by Mr Trump’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, who argued his client couldn’t be impeached for an action he thought might get him re-elected.

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Greta Thunberg nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Swedish MPs

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and the global protest movement "Fridays for Future" were nominated Thursday for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize by two Swedish lawmakers. "Greta Thunberg is a climate activist, and the main reason she deserves the Nobel Peace Prize is that despite her young age, she has worked hard to make politicians open their eyes to the climate crisis," Left Party parliamentarians Jens Holm and Hakan Svenneling wrote in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

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WRAPUP 2-Pilots, flight attendants demand flights to China stop as virus fear mount worldwide

CHICAGO/PARIS Jan 30 (Reuters) - Pilots and flight attendants are demanding airlines stop flights to China as health officials declare a global emergency over the rapidly spreading coronavirus, with American Airlines' pilots filing a lawsuit seeking an immediate halt. China has reported nearly 10,000 cases and 213 deaths, but the virus has spread to 18 countries often by plane passengers. The Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents American Airlines pilots, cited "serious, and in many ways still unknown, health threats posed by the coronavirus" in a lawsuit filed in Texas, where the airline is based.

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Estranged husband accused of killing Jennifer Dulos dies

Fotis Dulos, 52, had been hospitalized since Tuesday when he was found at his home in Farmington, Connecticut, following an apparent suicide attempt. “It's been a truly horrific day for the family filled with difficult decisions, medical tests and meeting the requirements to determine death," attorney Norm Pattis said. “To those who contend that Mr. Dulos' death reflects a consciousness of guilt, we say no," he added.

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Lou Dobbs accidentally included himself in his Bolton 'tool for the left' conspiracy

"It's a totally upside-down world" for John Bolton, said Sen. Chris Von Hollen (D-Md.), one of the Democrats who recently called President Trump's former national security adviser a "warmonger" and now wants him to testify under oath. as the star witness in Trump's impeachment trial.On the other side, some of "Bolton's longtime Republican friends are just as abruptly tossing him to the curb, painting him as a disgruntled former adviser who just wants to sell books," writes Peter Baker at The New York Times. "Some of the same senators who allied with him, promoted his career, consulted with him on foreign affairs, and took his political action committee money are going along as he is painted as 'a tool for the radical Dems and the deep state,'" as Fox Business host and former Bolton fan Lou Dobbs said Monday night.Dobbs showed some confusing charts trying to connect Bolton, a Republican stalwart and hardline national security conservative, to various figures Dobbs also distrusts, like Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). The charts link Romney to Bolton and Trump's current national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, for example, but don't connect Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his twin brother. But in tarring "Bolton as a tool of the president's enemies," Baker notes, Dobbs also cited as proof that Bolton "used the same literary agents as James B. Comey the FBI director fired by Mr. Trump — prompting one of the literary agents to point out that one of their other clients was Mr. Dobbs," among other conservatives.> Dear @LouDobbs, you forgot to list some other notable @JavelinDC clients: Don Rumsfeld, Tucker, numerous GOP officeholders, @mikepillsbury, conservative organizations, oh, and you! Are you part of the conspiracy? https://t.co/nZdaNvkkMW> > — Matt Latimer (@matt_latimer) January 28, 2020Whether or not Dobbs is also a "tool for the left," Bolton "still wants a future in Republican politics," Baker reports, citing Bolton's friend. "He also remains as contemptuous of Democrats as ever and has not explicitly expressed support for impeachment or conviction." So maybe the world isn't so upside-down after all.More stories from theweek.com Mitch McConnell's rare blunder John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi 7 witheringly funny cartoons about the GOP's John Bolton problem

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7,000 People Trapped on Mediterranean Cruise in Italy Over Suspected Coronavirus Case

ROME—More than 7,000 people were quarantined on an Italian cruise ship in the Mediterranean port of Civitavecchia outside of Rome after a Chinese woman from Hong Kong came down with a fever and symptoms that mimic the coronavirus. Initial tests seemed to exclude the deadly virus, according to Italian media, but passengers were expected to be kept onboard overnight as a precaution. A second round of tests late Thursday completely excluded contagion, and Italy’s health authorities gave the green light for passengers to disembark. But as of Thursday evening, the mayor of Civitavecchia refused to authorize any passengers to get off the ship. Tourism operators, suddenly confronted with a new nightmare scenario tied to the virus, scrambled to address fears of an outbreak on a cruise ship. “We have no information, the internet inside the ship isn’t working, and we can’t get news. But above all we take meals together in the common areas, and we don’t know if someone is infected,” Liborio Iervolino, a cruise passenger from Puglia said. ‘There are no disposable dishes and in the rooms, the televisions only broadcast advertisements. We would like to see the news and understand what is happening.”The Costa Smerelda, the fifth-largest cruise ship in the world and the flagship of an Italian company best known for the 2011 crash of the Costa Concordia on Tuscan island of Giglio, departed from Savona, Italy, on Jan. 25 with 6,000 passengers and 1,000 crew onboard. The massive, 19-deck vessel made stops in Marseilles, Barcelona, and Palma de Mallorca before docking in Civitavecchia on Thursday. It was scheduled to return to Savona for the Feb. 1 end of the cruise. But passengers who had lined up for a Rome excursion or to disembark at its penultimate stop were told to stay on the ship after medics in full hazmat suits boarded the vessel Thursday morning to check on a female Chinese patient in her fifties who was in the ship’s hospital. The woman, along with her asymptomatic husband and the medical team who treated her during the voyage, are being held in isolation on the ship. Samples from the woman were sent to the Lazzaro Spallanzani infectious disease hospital in Rome to be tested. Citizens of the port town of Civitavecchia have gone to the port to protest the disembarkation of 1,143 passengers whose voyage was scheduled to end in their town. “All the protocols are being followed and we will keep the case constantly monitored,” Civitavecchia’s mayor, Ernesto Tedesco, told worried citizens as he threatened to sue the cruise company if they disembarked before the full test results were back.The Costa company confirmed to The Daily Beast that the couple were among more than 750 Chinese or Hong Kong passengers on the voyage. Of those, 351 embarked on Jan. 25 in Savona along with the sick passenger, while others got on at the ship’s various ports of call in Spain and France. The couple arrived in Italy for the Jan. 25 embarkation on a flight from Hong Kong to Milan’s Malpensa airport, which means if the woman is confirmed to have the virus, health officials will then begin tracing anyone who flew with her, since the virus can be contagious even before symptoms show. A Costa representative would not confirm when the woman first reported being sick.“The situation is under control and at the moment there are no reasons for concern on board,” Italian Coast Guard Commander Vincenzo Leone said in a statement Thursday.Passengers reached by The Daily Beast via social media say they were not told directly that the woman was suspected of carrying the virus, but were told to alert crew members if they were sick with fever or respiratory conditions. Several passengers have tweeted that they should have been told earlier in the voyage that they might be at risk. Many complained that they were not given face masks or rubber gloves to prevent infection.Teens Are Now Claiming They Have Coronavirus for Tik Tok CloutRead 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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Navy SEAL Promoted After Choking Green Beret to Death

The U.S. Navy promoted Chief Petty Officer Tony DeDolph four months after he admitted to choking a Green Beret to death. DeDolph—who will be back in court Thursday for a preliminary hearing—was formally charged in November 2018 with felony murder, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, burglary, hazing, and involuntary manslaughter in the strangulation death of Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar, a Special Forces soldier assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group.Melgar was nearing the end of his deployment when he was killed in the West African nation of Mali in June 2017. He was part of an intelligence operation in Mali supporting counterterrorism efforts against al Qaeda’s local affiliate, known as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.Days after Melgar was strangled, DeDolph, at the time a petty officer first class, was sent back to his base in Virginia Beach under suspicion of murder. Despite that, DeDolph found himself on the promotion list for chief petty officer in August 2017; he was “frocked”—meaning he began wearing the insignia of the higher rank—on Sept. 15, 2017, according to defense officials. He didn’t start drawing chief’s pay until December.Slain Green Beret’s Widow Speaks: ‘I Knew They Were Lying’Three days before DeDolph’s promotion, the medical examiner’s report was signed. It concluded, based on a June 8, 2017, autopsy at Dover Air Force Base, that Melgar’s cause of death was asphyxiation and the manner of death was homicide, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Beast.A defense official familiar with the case said Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as Seal Team 6, didn’t flag DeDolph because he was not formally charged or a person of interest in an ongoing investigation. He was a participant in the investigation but no charges were filed until November 2018.Retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, the former commander of Special Operations Command-Africa, told The Daily Beast this week that he authorized an investigation after he learned of Melgar’s death. Bolduc alerted Army Criminal Investigation Command and told commanders in Mali to preserve evidence. He didn’t understand why DeDolph was promoted when he returned to his unit in Virginia Beach.“It is another failure of leadership,” Bolduc said. “I mean senior leadership. It’s unfortunate. He should have never been promoted. The investigation was started right away. They whisked them out of there as fast as they could.”When asked if he was surprised by the news, Bolduc said no.“I’m disappointed,” he said. “But not surprised. It’s utter bullshit.”Navy prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Garcia declined to comment on the promotion because DeDolph is part of an ongoing investigation.“DeDolph has remained a member of Naval Special Warfare throughout this process,” said Navy Capt. Tamara Lawrence, a spokeswoman for Naval Special Warfare. “It is paramount that the rights of the service member are protected, thus any additional information regarding this case will not be discussed.”Phil Stackhouse, DeDolph's civilian attorney, did not return calls or text messages seeking comment. Melgar’s widow, Michelle, declined to comment on the story.DeDolph’s case is just one of several high-profile incidents that have exposed issues in the SEAL culture. Members of SEAL Team 7 were expelled from Iraq in 2019 after allegations of drinking and sexual assault. Six SEALs tested positive for cocaine last year. Then there’s the case of Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Gallagher, a former member of SEAL Team 7, who faced a court martial for war crimes charges including murder, but was convicted of posing for a picture with a dead body and granted clemency by President Trump in November 2019. Trump Tells Allies He Wants Absolved War Criminals to Campaign for HimSome of the same issues were present in Mali, where there was widespread alcohol use, partying, and prostitutes at the safehouse, according to sources familiar with the investigation. “It was like a frat house,” one source said, when asked to describe what the safe house in Bamako was like. In response to the recent incidents, Rear Adm. Collin Green, head of Naval Special Warfare Command, sent a memo last year to his subordinate units declaring the whole SEAL community has a problem.“Some of our subordinate formations have failed to maintain good order and discipline and as a result and for good reason, our NSW culture is being questioned,” Green wrote in the July 2019 memo. “I don’t know yet if we have a culture problem, I do know that we have a good order and discipline problem that must be addressed immediately.”Gen. Richard Clarke, the head of Special Operations Command, ordered an ethics review last August following several high-profile incidents. He acknowledged in a memo to service members on Tuesday that “unacceptable conduct” had been allowed to occur as a result of “lack of leadership, discipline and accountability.” The 71-page report summing up the ethics review warned of what Clarke described as an emphasis on “force employment and mission accomplishment over the routine activities that ensure leadership, accountability, and discipline.”Chief Petty Officer Adam C. Matthews, who was in Mali doing an assessment of the mission there, testified in August he felt it was his duty to haze Melgar—on DeDolph’s recommendation—to teach him a lesson after Melgar “ditched” the team in Mali’s capital city of Bamako on his way to a party at the French embassy. Investigator of Green Beret’s Murder Had Romantic Relationship With Witness, Lawyer SaysDeDolph, Matthews and two Marine Raiders—Gunnery Sgt. Mario Madera-Rodriguez and Staff Sgt. Kevin Maxwell—spent the rest of the night plotting to choke Melgar into unconsciousness, pull his pants down and videotape the incident and then show it to him later to embarrass him. When Melgar became unresponsive, Matthews and DeDolph tried to resuscitate Melgar with CPR and opened a hole in his throat. The SEALS with Sergeant First Class James Morris, Melgar’s supervisor, then rushed Melgar to a French medical facility, where he was pronounced dead. At the clinic, DeDolph admitted to an embassy official he choked Melgar, according to NBC News and subsequent reports.Maxwell and Matthews have already pleaded guilty in exchange for plea agreements with prosecutors. Matthews, 33, pleaded guilty to hazing and assault charges and attempts to cover up what happened to Melgar. He was sentenced in May 2019 to one year in military prison. Maxwell, 29, was sentenced to four years of confinement after pleading guilty in connection with Melgar’s death in June 2019.DeDolph and Madera-Rodriguez are the last of the four men who carried out the attack to stand trial. Both men are expected to face courts martial this spring. An exact date has not been selected, according to Navy officials.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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Biden Says He's Getting Old—So His VP Should Be 'Capable of Immediately Being a President'

'I'm an old guy,' Biden admitted.

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Iranian factory makes U.S. and Israeli flags to burn

Business is booming at Iran's largest flag factory which makes U.S., British and Israeli flags for Iranian protesters to burn. The factory produces about 2,000 U.S. and Israeli flags a month in its busiest periods, and more than 1.5 million square feet of flags a year. Tensions between the United States and Iran have reached the highest level in decades after top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad on Jan. 3, prompting Iran to retaliate with a missile attack against a U.S. base in Iraq days later.

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Trial Date Set for Jeffrey Epstein Jail Guards

Two Manhattan jail guards charged with falsifying records after Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell will face trial in June, a federal judge ruled Thursday.Tova Noel, 31, and Michael Thomas, 41, who worked inside Metropolitan Correctional Center’s (MCC) Special Housing Unit, are accused of failing to conduct mandated checks on inmates in the hours before the multi-millionaire sex-offender killed himself in August 2019. Both corrections officers have pleaded not guilty.In Manhattan federal court on Thursday, defense lawyers asked to delay the trial until October—a request U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres promptly denied. Torres set a trial date for June 22, despite the protestations of Noel’s lawyer, Jason Foy, who said the schedule would interfere with his family vacation. The defense attorneys also requested a later date because of what they described as “voluminous” discovery materials, including some they said they hadn’t received. “It’s necessary,” Foy told the court. “This isn’t about us laying back and taking our time.”Thomas’ attorney, Montell Figgins, added, “It took the federal government 90 days to investigate … it’s going to take us more than 90 days to do the same amount of work.”Indictment Against Jail Guards Reveals News Details From Jeffrey Epstein’s Final HoursFiggins also told Judge Torres he’d likely file a motion to dismiss the indictment due to selective prosecution, and that he needed to obtain a report from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General which, along with the FBI and Bureau of Prisons, was tasked with investigating Epstein’s death in a federal facility.Prosecutors had argued against delaying the trial—previously slated for April—which they said will last a week. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Lonergan said the facts in the criminal case only relate to a 14-hour period of time. “This is a very focused, single-incident indictment,” Lonergan said, adding that broader working conditions at MCC were “just not relevant.”Foy disagreed, saying MCC’s environs and alleged failures in security measures “are directly related” to his client’s case. (Both guards were working overtime shifts, and the union representing the officers told The Daily Beast that MCC is constantly understaffed, forcing some guards to work “mandatory overtime” shifts totaling 16 to 18 hours.)After Thursday’s court appearance, Figgins told reporters that the feds “want to put my client in jail for the same conduct that’s happening with other officers on a daily basis.” He said Thomas is on leave without pay pending an administrative hearing.He said his selective prosecution defense will center around the fact that other corrections officers within the Bureau of Prisons system, outside of the Epstein case, have also fallen short with required checks but without criminal consequences.The Bureau of Prisons allowed guards to work nearly 24 hours straight, creating a system where guards could fall asleep on the job, Figgins claimed; guards might end a shift only to be told they couldn’t go home for another eight hours because of staff shortages. “How can they allow that type of work to go on and not expect something like that [Epstein’s death] to happen?” he said.“Now when a billionaire dies, they want to make [Noel and Thomas] a scapegoat,” Figgins continued. He pointed out Noel and Thomas weren’t the only officers working the night before Epstein died; a lieutenant had to sign off on paperwork for their rounds, and a control room held other guards, too. “Why are these the only people charged?” Figgins asked.Last November, federal prosecutors charged Noel and Thomas each with one count of conspiring to defraud the United States. Noel is also charged with five counts of making false records, while Thomas was slapped with three counts of making false records. According to prosecutors, the corrections officers face five years in prison for each count of the charges.Prosecutors say the guards never conducted their mandated checks on inmates, including Epstein, on the night he hanged himself. “Instead, for substantial portions of their shifts, Noel and Thomas sat at their desk, browsed the internet, and moved around the common area of the SHU [Special Housing Unit],” the indictment alleged. “To conceal their failure to perform their duties, Noel and Thomas repeatedly signed false certifications attesting to having conducted multiple counts of inmates when, in truth and in fact, they never conducted such counts.”Epstein was found dead in his cell around 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10—one month after he was arrested for trafficking minor girls. He’d previously attempted to hang himself on July 23, officials said, but was taken off suicide watch after 24 hours. He was under psychological observation until July 30.  Later in August, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd said a jail psychologist removed Epstein from suicide watch. In a letter to the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Boyd said “a doctoral-level psychologist” had “determined that a suicide watch was no longer warranted.”According to the indictment, no SHU guards conducted counts from about 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 9 until Epstein’s body was discovered the next morning. Both Noel and Thomas had been working overtime shifts the day Epstein died. A cellmate of the multi-millionaire had been transferred out of MCC on Aug. 9, and “despite the MCC’s psychological staff’s direction that Epstein have a cellmate, no new cellmate was assigned to Epstein's cell,” the indictment stated.Noel worked a shift from 4 p.m. on Aug. 9 to 8 a.m. on Aug. 10, while Thomas started his shift at 12 a.m. on Aug. 10. They were the only corrections officers on duty in the Special Housing Unit from 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Aug. 10, prosecutors say.The guards were collectively responsible for two prisoner checks on Aug. 9, at 4 p.m. and 10 p.m., as well as three checks on Aug. 10, at 12 a.m., 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.When a supervisor who’d just gotten to work responded to an alarm that went off in MCC at 6:33 a.m. on Aug. 10, Noel allegedly announced, “Epstein hung himself.” Noel was said to admit later, “We did not complete the 3 a.m. nor the 5 a.m. rounds.”“We messed up,” Thomas allegedly told a supervisor. “I messed up, she’s not to blame, we didn’t do any rounds.”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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US hits Iran with new sanctions, keeps some waivers in place

The Trump administration said Thursday that it will continue — at least for now — its policy of not sanctioning foreign companies that work with Iran's civilian nuclear program. Brian Hook, U.S. envoy to Iran, said the U.S. would renew for 60 days sanctions waivers that permit Russian, European and Chinese companies to continue to work on Iran's civilian nuclear facilities without running afoul of U.S. sanctions.

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Trump, trying to head off testimony, says Bolton would have started 'World War Six'

As pressure mounts on senators to allow John Bolton’s testimony in President Trump’s impeachment trial, the president used Twitter to trash his former national security adviser.

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Get us out of here, plead foreign students at China virus epicenter

Foreign students stuck in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of a coronavurus outbreak, are launching social media campaigns, making phone calls and writing letters urging their governments to get them out as soon as possible. Governments globally are grappling with the challenge of how to get their citizens out of China's Hubei province, where 60 million residents now live under virtual lockdown. Pakistan said that quarantine regulations prevented it from flying out the more than 500 Pakistani students and their families from Wuhan.

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Biden's campaign is reportedly seeking 'election-night alliances' with candidates who may not survive Iowa

Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign might be a little worried about Iowa.The first caucuses of the 2020 primary season are coming up in just four days, but Biden by no means has a lock on Iowa. So Biden's campaign is reaching out to lower-polling candidates in hopes of striking "election night alliances" to pick up their supporters if they don't make it past the first caucus ballots, Politico reports.Tom Steyer, the billionaire who's sitting at an average of 3.6 percent in the polls, was reportedly one of the targets of Biden's campaign. An aide to Steyer confirmed his campaign was approached by "multiple candidates," per Politico. Biden's team similarly talked with entrepreneur Andrew Yang's staffers, sources said. And three Biden staffers also "tentatively floated" a deal with a strategist for Sen. Amy Klobuchar's (D-Minn.) campaign, The New York Times reported earlier this week. All the campaigns told Politico they'd "rebuffed advances" from other candidates.Biden's second-tier strategy isn't unusual for the Iowa caucuses. The state's system allows people who've supported candidates "who fail to reach 15 percent support in a precinct on the first ballot" to chose someone else for the next ballot, which eventually chooses the state's delegates, Politico writes. Yet it also makes it clear that Biden's campaign knows the Iowa race is far from settled. Read more at Politico.More stories from theweek.com Mitch McConnell's rare blunder John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi 7 witheringly funny cartoons about the GOP's John Bolton problem

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U.S. Farm Chief Presses EU to Throw Doors Open to American Foods

(Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue signaled that a renewed transatlantic trade truce will require more ambitious European Union efforts to ease imports of American foods.Perdue criticized an idea being pursued by the bloc of a piecemeal accord that would scale back European regulatory barriers to individual American products such as shellfish, saying a U.S. farm-trade deficit with the EU of $10 billion to $12 billion was “unsustainable and unreasonable.”Instead, he said, Europe should reject the “political science of fear” over U.S. farm goods and ease market access for them in general.“We’re looking for real substance,” Perdue said from Rome on Thursday during a conference call with reporters. “It depends on recognizing international standards.”The comments challenge Europe’s better-safe-than-sorry approach to food safety -- a stance that has led to longstanding EU bans on hormone-treated beef and “chlorinated” chicken, and to a slow approval process in Europe for genetically modified foods.The remarks also highlight the obstacles to reviving a July 2018 transatlantic commercial truce. A fraying of that deal in recent months prompted U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen last week to pledge fresh efforts to reach a trade accord, which she said could also include matters related to energy and technology.Any failure could prompt an escalation in tit-for-tat tariffs that began in 2018 when Trump invoked national-security considerations to impose duties on steel and aluminum from Europe.Perdue described talks he held on Monday with EU officials in Brussels as “very productive.” And, while declining to speculate about the elements of any transatlantic farm deal because it is being handled in Washington by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Perdue held out the prospect of results within weeks.To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Nikos Chrysoloras, Peter ChapmanFor 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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Tata Motors back in black, posts profit of Rs 1,756 crore in Dec quarter

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Rupee slides 22p against dollar to three-week low

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New power scheme to aim for fewer losses, offer supply choices

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‘Retail loan growth slowing down … to continue unless economy improves’

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Why Bapu remains relevant | HT Editorial

Gandhi, in life and death, left lessons contemporary India should heed

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A tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, writes President Kovind

In his final sacrifice, he left a constant reminder for us; unconditional love, especially for the Other

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Why Bapu remains relevant | HT Editorial

Gandhi, in life and death, left lessons contemporary India should heed

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McConnell: Republicans don't have the votes to block witnesses in impeachment trial, reports say

Mitch McConnell told Republicans that the GOP does not have the votes to block additional witnesses, according to multiple media reports.

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This Picture Is North Korea, China, Iran and Russia's Worst Military Nightmare

Imagine 52 F-35s coming at you.

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Historians: Sobibor death camp photos may feature Demjanjuk

Historians have presented a collection of photos kept by the deputy commander of the Nazis' Sobibor death camp that they say appears to include images of John Demjanjuk, the retired Ohio auto worker who was tried in Germany for his alleged time as a Sobibor guard. The collection unveiled Tuesday at Berlin's Topography of Terror museum comprises 361 photos as well as written documents illustrating Johann Niemann's career. Niemann was the deputy commander of Sobibor from September 1942 until he was killed on Oct. 14, 1943, in an uprising by Jewish inmates.

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Johnson to Hail Hope and Opportunity of Brexit Just as U.K. Leaves EU

(Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will make a speech to the nation at 10 p.m. on Friday -- an hour before the country leaves the European Union.After three years of political turmoil over Brexit, Johnson said finally leaving the bloc will be “a great moment for our country”. It will be a time of “hope and opportunity” and a chance to come together, he said in a Facebook broadcast released by his office.The prime minister said he will mark the moment in a way that’s “mindful” of the nation’s divisions over breaking with the bloc. His Conservative Party has spent decades divided over the U.K.’s relationship with the EU and even Johnson’s own family has been split. Last year his brother Jo quit the cabinet over the premier’s Brexit plans.“I will be celebrating in a way that I hope is respectful of the scale of the event, that does justice to the astonishing feat that Britain has accomplished, but also is mindful or everybody’s feelings about what we are doing,” he said.To contact the reporters on this story: Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net;Olivia Konotey-Ahulu in London at okonoteyahul@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Thomas Penny, Robert HuttonFor 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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