Roberts says it would be ‘inappropriate’ for him to act as a tie-breaker.

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Giuliani Sought Help for Client in Meeting With Ukrainian Official

By BY RONEN BERGMAN, ANTON TROIANOVSKI AND KENNETH P. VOGEL from NYT World https://ift.tt/3b0Qu9x

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Watch Live: Senators Debate Impeachment Trial Amendments

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Facebook, Microsoft, and Tesla report earnings: Tech

Weekly highlight of Yahoo Finance's top tech news, features and analyses.

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Palestinians face uphill battle against Trump's Middle East plan

When Palestinian leaders learned that the release of U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East plan was imminent, they swiftly announced a "day of rage" - a gritty, oft-used call for resistance against Israel. As in past decades, critics are branding the Palestinians as naysayers, continually rejecting offers of a settlement in the hope, so far futile, of something better to come. Contrary to expectations, Trump did propose a "two-state" solution for the conflict - but with strict conditions that would leave any future Palestinian state under near-complete Israeli security control.

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Lori Vallow didn't meet the Thursday deadline to turn her kids over to the state. Their grandma believes the 'monster' will face consequences.

Vallow had until Thursday to turn her children over to the state of Idaho. She missed it and is believed to still be in Hawaii.

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Warren Gets Endorsement From Prominent Iowa Political Couple

(Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren on Friday locked in a major endorsement from an influential couple in Iowa politics three days before the caucuses.Former Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Sue Dvorsky and her husband, former state Senator Bob Dvorsky, announced they were endorsing Warren for president in a statement to the Des Moines Register.“This woman has integrity. She has grit. And she has a plan,” Sue Dvorsky said in the statement. ”And she’s solutions-oriented.”The Dvorskys had previously endorsed Senator Kamala Harris, who dropped out of the race in December. The couple decided to publicly back Warren after a month of discussions. They received a personal call from Warren on Thursday during a break in the impeachment trial, the Des Moines Register reported.The endorsement helps Warren’s pitch as the unity candidate. The couple join a list of about 22 Iowans who had formally endorsed other presidential candidates but then backed Warren after their initial picks dropped out.Endorsements can carry more weight in Iowa than in other states because the caucus system gives an edge to the candidate with the strongest local connections. The Dvorskys were early backers of Barack Obama in 2007, and Sue Dvorsky served as Hillary Clinton’s women’s engagement director for Iowa in 2016.Warren, who was the front-runner in Iowa in the fall, is now locked in a tight race with other top-tier candidates for the winning ticket out of Iowa. In a Monmouth University poll released Wednesday, Warren was fourth with support from 15% of Democrats, trailing Sanders who had 23%, Joe Biden with 21% and Pete Buttigieg with 15%.(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic nomination for president. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)To contact the reporter on this story: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Des Moines at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, Magan CraneFor 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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Bernie Sanders is starting to get slammed on how he would finance Medicare for All

The attacks on Medicare for All echo what Sen. Elizabeth Warren faced last year as she surged ahead in national polls.

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San Francisco airport official resigns in wake of FBI report

A member of the board that oversees San Francisco International Airport resigned Wednesday, a day after the FBI and U.S. attorney announced charges against a senior city bureaucrat and a restaurateur alleging they offered bribes to a board member for a restaurant lease at the airport. Airport Commissioner Linda Crayton said in a statement that she is resigning due to “multiple, severe medical conditions" she's had for several years. The complaint unsealed Tuesday against San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru and longtime restaurateur Nick Bovis focuses on an aborted attempt in 2018 to bribe a female airport commissioner, who has not been named.

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WHO Calls Coronavirus ‘Emergency’ as Person-to-Person Spread Confirmed in U.S.

Just hours after the first person-to-person spread of the new, deadly coronavirus was confirmed in the U.S. by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, had reconvened the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee, which recommended the designation on Thursday. Speaking from Geneva, Switzerland, Tedros said the move would allow the organization increased authority in coordinating the global response to the outbreak.Tedros said the declaration should not be seen as a “vote of no confidence in China,” which he said had set a new standard for outbreak response through its commitment to limit the spread of the infection.“Over the past few weeks we have witnessed the emergence of a previously unknown pathogen,” Tedros explained. “The Chinese government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak despite the social and economic impact it is having.”“WHO continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak,” he added. “Our greatest concern is the virus’s potential to spread to countries with weaker public health systems."Meanwhile, the new case in the U.S. involved the spouse of a previously identified patient in Chicago, the CDC said.“We understand that this may be concerning, but based on what we know now, we still believe the immediate risk to the American public is low,” Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, told reporters.Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said the spread “was among two people who were in close contact for an extended period of time.” In other words, the new patient may have only been able to contract the virus because he had sustained, prolonged exposure to his wife. That woman was diagnosed as the second confirmed patient in the United States on Jan. 21 after traveling to Wuhan, China, where the virus originated, officials said. The newer patient does have some underlying medical conditions, is in the hospital with his wife, and is about the same age (she is in her 60s), according to the agency.Messonnier noted on Thursday that the CDC was working to prevent “community transmission from happening here” and “trying to strike a balance in our response right now” to handle the outbreak while not sparking panic stateside.She added that the agency did not recommend the use of face masks to the general public, even in Chicago.At last count, there were a total of 165 “patients under investigation” for the virus in 36 states in the U.S., and 68 of those cases had come back negative. Only six people have tested positive for the virus. There were 21 people in Chicago being tested for possible infection, with those most at risk being older citizens or anyone with an underlying health condition, according to Messonnier. The CDC expects more cases of the virus to be confirmed in the U.S., including transmissions from person-to-person, officials said.7,000 People Trapped on Mediterranean Cruise in Italy Over Suspected Coronavirus CaseRedfield and other federal health officials also briefed lawmakers during a closed-door hearing on Thursday. “If this does turn into some kind of pandemic situation here in the U.S.—which we hope it will not—I am concerned about the time it will take to develop a vaccine and get it distributed to the American public,” said Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations panel. “While we have been able to shorten the time it takes to develop new vaccines, the time it takes to ramp up production and deliver those vaccines to the public is something that I am still very much concerned about.”The other confirmed cases in the U.S. include patients at Arizona State University in Tempe; in Orange County, California; a man in his 30s in Washington state; and a passenger who felt ill after flying into Los Angeles International Airport. Each of those cases involve patients who had recently traveled from Wuhan.A Kalitta Air Boeing 747 carrying nearly 200 American diplomats and citizens was evacuated on Tuesday and arrived early Wednesday at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California. Passengers underwent two medical screenings in China before boarding, two more screenings upon their layover in Alaska, and voluntarily agreed to remain on the premises for additional checks by the CDC at the air force base, where they were given assigned living quarters. Authorities have said they will transport any passenger with symptoms to a hospital.The U.S. State Department announced on Thursday that it will provide additional evacuation flights “on or about Feb. 3” to accommodate the more than 700 private American citizens still stuck in Wuhan who have requested government assistance in getting out of the port city.The flights will be available on a “reimbursable basis” and passengers will again be subject to “CDC screening, health evaluation, and monitoring requirements” before, during, and after travel, according to a press release.A day earlier, President Donald Trump announced the formation of a “president’s coronavirus task force” to lead the federal response to the outbreak in the U.S., alongside the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC.By Thursday, China’s death toll from the infection had reached 171, with 8,149 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to state media outlets. A day earlier, the number of infections in China officially eclipsed the tally of 5,327 people infected with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus that killed about 800 people across the globe in 2002 and 2003.The CDC has also sent a team to China to assist health officials in that country, after alleged rebukes from authorities when they were presented with previous offers.At last count, there were 98 cases confirmed outside of China in 18 countries, according to the World Health Organization. Even with global efforts to curb the spread of the virus, confirmed cases have now emerged in Finland, India, and the Philippines, said the organization, in addition to others previously reported in Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, Macau, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, France, Canada, Vietnam, and Nepal. There have been no reported deaths outside China.Authorities did say on Wednesday, however, that they had confirmed person-to-person transmission in Germany, Vietnam, and Japan. Japan, Australia, South Korea, France, Morocco, Germany, Kazakhstan, Britain, Canada, Russia, the Netherlands, and Myanmar were working to evacuate their citizens from the epicenter of the virus. Six hundred Australian citizens who were to be flown out of China’s Hubei province will be subsequently isolated for up to 14 days on Christmas Island, which is about 1,600 miles northwest of mainland Australia, according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Meanwhile, Russia is closing its Far East border with China in an effort to prevent the spread of coronavirus, according to Mikhail Mishustin, the country’s new prime minister. Several international airlines had either suspended or reduced service to China by Thursday morning, including American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Delta, United, Air Seoul, KLM, British Airways, Lufthansa, and Air Canada.The WHO has for some time now recommended this rapidly-spreading condition be referred to as 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease, where “n” stands for novel and “CoV” for coronavirus, to distinguish it from past outbreaks.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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New Bolton Book Allegations Drop Hours ahead of Vote on Witnesses

New reports of the contents of former White House adviser John Bolton's book have surfaced hours before the Senate is scheduled to vote on whether to call witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Trump.According to the New York Times, Bolton writes in his forthcoming book that Trump directed him to assist in the pressure campaign to coerce Ukrainian officials to conduct investigations against Joe and Hunter Biden during a May meeting at which the president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and White House counsel Pat Cipillone were present.During the meeting, Trump directed Bolton to set up a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Giuliani, who was then planning a trip to Ukraine to discuss the opening of the Biden investigation with government officials. Giuliani on Friday denied he was present at such a meeting, while Trump said Bolton's alleged account was wrong.The Times' Sunday report on Bolton's book, The Room Where it Happened, disrupted Republicans' blanket opposition to calling witnesses in the impeachment trial. After unanimously resisting Democrats' calls for Bolton to testify, moderate Republicans began to waver on Monday.Democrats need four Republican senators to vote in favor of calling witnesses in order for the motion to pass. Senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine have announced their support, however moderate Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has still not released her position. Senator Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), considered a swing vote, came out Thursday against calling witnesses.Democrats may argue that because revelations from Bolton's book have surfaced once again, a vote to allow witnesses at the trial-presumably including Bolton-would be necessary.The revelation that Trump's pressure campaign had begun as early as May and involved Bolton directly came moments after Senator John Cornyn (R., Texas) warned of the possibility the vote on President Trump's impeachment may be pushed back to next week."My guess is it probably is going to carry us over to the first part of next week," Cornyn told CNN. White House officials also told the network it was possible the trial would drag out into next week."I never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest corruption fighters in America…to meet with President Zelensky. That meeting never happened," Trump told the Times.

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South African Airways Faces Long Haul After Funding Lifeline

(Bloomberg) -- South African Airways finally secured the funding it needs to keep flying for the time being, yet there’s still a long way to go before the state-owned carrier can claim to be stable.SAA probably has enough cash to keep operating for as long as eight months after the Development Bank of Southern Africa stepped in with a 3.5 billion rand ($240 million) injection, according to Joachim Vermooten, an independent aviation consultant. The carrier is running at a loss of about 500 million rand a month and the situation may deteriorate as it scraps flights and reduces ticket prices to attract wary customers, he said.The loss-making airline was put into a local form of bankruptcy protection late last year and administrators at Johannesburg-based Matuson & Associates have little more than a month left to come up with a workable plan to turn it around. They’re working in the meantime on cutting costs, and on Thursday said they are reviewing supply contracts and canceled almost 100 domestic and international flights based on weak bookings.Matuson & Associates have said securing an equity partner for SAA is at the heart of its rescue strategy -- an option that’s been talked about for years but never materialized.“It would not be possible to get an equity partner in until SAA demonstrates a turnaround and level of profitability to enable a reasonable return,” Vermooten said Wednesday. “I cannot foresee this soon.”Ethiopian InterestSAA has lost money since 2012 as it grapples with high costs, an inefficient jet fleet, mismanagement and corruption allegations. Pooling resources with a partner could enable SAA to reduce operating expenses, while the sale of equity would also help pay down debt.Carriers that have expressed an interest in the past include Ethiopian Airlines Group, which said in October it would consider a deal in part to defend African airlines against competition from rivals in the Gulf. The Addis Ababa-based airline didn’t respond to requests for comment.The state-owned DBSA’s decision to put cash into SAA came months after the government agreed to provide it with a 2 billio-rand lifeline, and the move has raised eyebrows in some quarters.Mkhuleko Hlengwa, the chairman of the South African parliament’s public accounts committee, told a state-owned radio station the money is being lent without enough due diligence as the airline has failed to release financial statements.And while Grant Back, chairman of the SAA Pilots Association, welcomed the DBSA intervention and said it should reassure passengers that it’s safe to buy tickets, he said the management team must be replaced en masse.“Until now, government has failed to hold management accountable for the downward spiral of the airline and this cannot continue,” Back said in an emailed statement. “Managers are still making poor decisions at grave cost to the airline.”Louise Brugman, a spokeswoman for Matuson & Associates, declined to comment.(Updates with flight cancelations in third paragraph)\--With assistance from Roxanne Henderson.To contact the reporters on this story: John Bowker in Johannesburg at jbowker2@bloomberg.net;Paul Vecchiatto in Cape Town at pvecchiatto@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Mike Cohen, Paul RichardsonFor 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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Bloomberg glides past Warren to No. 3 in Democratic race — Reuters/Ipsos poll

After steadily rising in popularity over the last several weeks, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg appears to have surpassed Sen. Elizabeth Warren among registered voters for the 2020 Democratic nomination, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national public opinion poll released Thursday.

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U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency Over Coronavirus Fears

Federal officials declared a public health emergency and will be restricting entry into the United States in light of the 2019 novel coronavirus that has killed at least 200 people and infected nearly 10,000 more worldwide. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters Friday that President Trump would sign a proclamation temporarily suspending entry to foreign nationals deemed to pose a transmission risk.Azar also said any U.S. citizen who traveled to China's Hubei province within the past 14 days before arriving home would be subjected two weeks of mandatory quarantine. And citizens who traveled to any other regions in China would undergo a “proactive entry health screen” and 14 days of monitored self-quarantine.“The risk for infections for Americans remains low,” Azar said, adding that these steps were “measured” reactions that would help officials deal with “unknowns” surrounding the virus.Earlier Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said they were putting 195 people who recently returned from China under quarantine for two weeks, dubbing it an “unprecedented” step that was now warranted.“We are preparing as this is the next pandemic, but hopeful this is not and will not be the case,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on a call with reporters. “We would rather be remembered for overreacting to under-reacting.”The move came after one of those recently-returned travelers reportedly attempted to leave the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California, after arriving from Wuhan, China. The CDC declined to provide more information on the individual. There are currently over 9,800 cases of coronavirus in China, while the number of confirmed cases in the United States remained steady at six. Only one, the husband of a woman who recently traveled abroad, had been spread in-country, the CDC said previously. No one had died as a result of infection in the United States by the CDC's latest count.But Messonnier pointed to the most recent number of cases in China, which she said represented a 26 percent increase over Thursday's numbers, as a cause for growing vigilance. She also mentioned an increasing number of reports of person-to-person spread, including growing evidence that the 2019 novel coronavirus can be spread by people who have not yet experienced symptoms. The New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday released a study describing a case in Germany that appeared to show the spread of the virus from a person who traveled to China to several others.“The current scenario is a cause for concern,” Messonnier said.WHO Calls Coronavirus ‘Emergency’ as Person-to-Person Spread Confirmed in U.S.When asked if the coronavirus were more dangerous than the flu, Messonnier said there appeared to be “significant mortality related with this disease” based on cases coming out of China. However, she still didn't recommend face masks for the general public and urged people to stay calm.“Please do not let fear guide your actions,” she said, adding that the public shouldn't assume Asian Americans have the virus amid reports of surging xenophobia against people of Chinese descent worldwide. “There are about 4 million Chinese-Americans in this country.”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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GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander called Trump's actions 'inappropriate' but says he will vote against a motion for witnesses in impeachment trial

All eyes are on a few Republican senators who could be swing votes in the motion to call witnesses: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney.

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Bernie Sanders told Ninth Graders the U.S. Committed Acts in Vietnam ‘Almost as Bad as what Hitler Did’

During his 1972 gubernatorial run, Senator Bernie Sanders told high-school students that the U.S. had committed acts in its war with Vietnam that were "almost as bad as what Hitler did."An article in the Rutland, Vermont, newspaper, The Rutland Herald, reported on the comments, made while Sanders was campaigning for governor as a member of the Liberty Union party. The article was first unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon.The North Vietnamese "are not my enemy," Sanders told a class of ninth graders in Rutland while on the campaign trail. "They're a very, very poor people. Some of them don't have shoes. They eat rice when they can get it. And they have been fighting for the freedom of their country for 25 years. They can hardly fight back."The American death toll from the Vietnam War was over 58,000. The Herald reported that students pushed back against Sanders's support for amnesty for draft evaders, saying it wouldn't be fair to the parents of soldiers killed in the fighting.Sanders also outlined other positions that may sound familiar to today's voters, including increasing the minimum wage and availability of low-income housing, as well as increased access to dental care. He also charged that the Democratic Party was too beholden to large corporations.The Vermont senator received around one percent of the vote in that election. Sanders is currently the strongest presidential candidate from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and has polled ahead of moderate Joe Biden in various Iowa and New Hampshire surveys.Establishment Democrats have been worried by Sanders's rise and durability throughout the primary. The senator has relied on an enthusiastic base of younger progressive voters, and has received strong grassroots financial support.

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Kobe Bryant helicopter firm was not allowed to fly in fog

Island Express Helicopters was restricted to flying in clear conditions, officials say.

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Could you handle the most remote campsite on earth?

Take a look inside an Antarctic campsite and find out how they survive.

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Hillary Clinton Slams Bernie Sanders for Not Working to Unite Democrats in 2016

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Plans for Alabama’s Deadly Prisons ‘Won’t Fix the Horrors’

By BY KATIE BENNER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3aZLFgP

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Brexit Has Arrived. But Boris Johnson’s Reign Is Just Beginning.

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Senators say they’ve settled on a schedule that would end the trial on Wednesday.

By BY PATRICIA MAZZEI AND MAGGIE HABERMAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2UbLc5b

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Battle Lines Quickly Form Over Radical Property Tax Proposal

By BY EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS, MATTHEW HAAG AND JEFFERY C. MAYS from NYT New York https://ift.tt/2tgjTeQ

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Censorship claims emerge as TikTok gets political in India

A TikTok influencer says his videos on Hindu-Muslim unity have triggered censorship on the app.

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Making beautiful colours without toxic chemicals

Dyeing clothes uses a lot of water and chemicals, but new tech is drawing on nature for colours.

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Coronavirus: Why are we catching more diseases from animals?

Climate change is shifting our relationship with the animal kingdom and helping diseases evolve.

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What ancient Rome may teach on post-Brexit tourism

As more Britons holiday at home and European visitor numbers fall, could we learn from ancient Rome?

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Brexit: 'You have to be optimistic as a fisherman'

Fishing is set to play a key role in post-Brexit trade negotiations between the UK and EU.

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Trump Travels to Iowa to Energize Supporters for Caucuses Next Week

By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2GBRnr0

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These Brands Said No to Running Super Bowl Commercials

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When Will We See Bolton’s Book?

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Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

PROGRAMMING ALERT: Sen. Rand Paul talks impeachment fight on 'The Story,' 7 pm ET

01/30/20 3:52 PM

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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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Erdogan Warns Russia Risks Split With Turkey on Syria Attack

(Bloomberg) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced rare recent criticism of Russia for its conduct in Syria, saying his “patience is running out” over the ongoing bombing of opposition Islamist forces in Idlib province.“As of now, Russia is loyal to neither Astana nor Sochi” agreements, Erdogan told reporters on his way back from a visit to African countries, according to Anadolu Agency.He was referring to accords struck by the two countries in recent years to curtail fighting in northern Syria. Russia and Turkey have stepped up their cooperation in the Syrian conflict while finding themselves on opposite sides of other Middle Eastern conflicts, such as the one in Libya.“If we are loyal partners, Russia will make its position clear,” Erdogan said. “Either it will have a different process with Syria, or it will have a different process with Turkey. There’s no other way.”The comments follow reports that Syrian government forces, backed by Russia, have taken control of Ma’arrat al-Nu’man, the biggest town in Idlib province. The strategically important area last changed hands in 2012, Anadolu reported on Wednesday.Russia responded to Erdogan’s comments by saying it’s committed to strictly implementing its obligations on Syria, the state-run Tass news service reported, citing the Foreign Ministry in Moscow.Millions of Syrians fleeing fighting in Syria over the years have headed for Turkey, and officials there have long warned of another major exodus as combat escalates in Idlib.(Updates with Russian Foreign Ministry in sixth paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Firat Kozok in Ankara at fkozok@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, 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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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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Republican senator laments starkly partisan nature of the trial.

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New York Is Urged to Consider Surge Pricing for Taxis

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More American Troops Sustain Brain Injuries From Iran Missile Strike in Iraq

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Everyone Wants a Piece

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¿Hará el papa Francisco un milagro con la deuda de Argentina?

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Alexander asks about the differences in bipartisanship under Nixon and Trump.

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Manufacturers urge clarity on post-Brexit trade

As Britain prepares to leave EU, businesses say the future trading relationship remains unclear.

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Giuliani Allies Spar Over Giving Evidence to House Democrats

(Bloomberg) -- Two indicted associates of Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani are battling over whether more evidence from their New York criminal case should be turned over to congressional Democrats pursuing the president’s impeachment, with federal prosecutors joining the fray.Lev Parnas has cultivated an unusually public role in recent weeks, granting national television interviews, giving evidence to Congress and offering to testify at the Senate trial of the president, who was impeached last month on charges including abuse of power. Parnas is doing all this while under indictment for breaking campaign finance law.It’s the third time Parnas has sought judicial approval to provide evidence to House impeachment managers. The request was opposed by Parnas’s co-defendants, who’ve kept a lower profile and who said the material could jeopardize their attorney-client privilege, as well as by federal prosecutors.The judge in the case has scheduled a hearing for Jan. 30.Parnas and co-defendant Igor Fruman were involved in the effort by Giuliani, Trump’s private lawyer, to dig up political dirt in Ukraine on Joe Biden, one of the president’s main political rivals in the coming election. Parnas and Fruman are charged with laundering foreign funds for U.S. political campaigns and masking the source of political contributions. Lawyers for Parnas had signaled his willingness to cooperate with the congressional impeachment inquiry since his arrest.Both pleaded not guilty.Read More: Giuliani Ally Got $1 Million From Ukraine Oligarch’s LawyerIn a series of blistering filings on Tuesday, lawyers for the defendants traded accusations and objections. Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Fruman, called Parnas’s approach “unacceptable.” Parnas’s lawyer, Joseph Bondy, shot back that Fruman was trying to avoid his congressional subpoena, “now with Mr. Giuliani aiding in his efforts,” without further explanation. Bondy didn’t return a call seeking comment on the accusation.It isn’t clear exactly what sort of evidence Parnas wants to turn over now, but it is “essential to the committee’s ability to corroborate the strength of Mr. Parnas’s potential testimony,” according to a filing by Bondy. It is described in court papers as material produced for prosecutors by Apple Inc. from Parnas’s iCloud account, in response to the government’s Oct. 21 subpoena.In their own filing, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said the material included reports created by the Federal Bureau of Investigation using data associated with the account.In a separate filing, Blanche said he believed the material jointly belonged to both defendants and therefore couldn’t be turned over without Fruman’s permission.The filings were submitted to the judge over the course of the last two weeks but made public by the court only on Tuesday.Earlier: Giuliani Ukraine Allies Arrested With One-Way Flight TicketsThe case is U.S. v. Parnas, 19-cr-725, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).(Updates with hearing)To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Berthelsen in New York at cberthelsen1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Jeffrey, 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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US military's Special Operations Command says its newest recruits may have an 'unhealthy sense of entitlement'

"It didn't happen during our period," a former Delta Force commander told Business Insider. "We really were severe about policing ourselves."

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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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Americans from China virus zone evaluated at military base

The 195 Americans evacuated from the Chinese city at the center of the new virus outbreak are undergoing three days of testing and monitoring at a California military base to ensure they do not show signs of the illness, officials said Wednesday. The people flown out of China on a plane chartered by the U.S. government have not been quarantined, Dr. Chris Braden of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters after the plane landed at March Air Reserve Base. Authorities said those evacuated, including U.S. consular employees based in the Chinese city of Wuhan and families with children, are technically not required to stay on the base.

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'It's hysteria': Asian students at Arizona State University say they're being treated differently after a case of the Wuhan coronavirus was confirmed there

A case of the coronavirus was confirmed at Arizona State University on Sunday, and Asian students have felt backlash ever since.

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China virus evacuations begin as death toll rises at outbreak epicenter

The health commission for Hubei said on Thursday that deaths in the province from the new coronavirus had risen by 37 to 162, while a further 1,032 cases had been detected. Although the majority of cases have been in Hubei, cases have been detected elsewhere in China and in at least 15 other countries. The World Health Organization's (WHO) Emergency Committee is set to reconvene behind closed doors in Geneva later on Thursday to decide whether the rapid spread of the virus now constitutes a global emergency.

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Syrian troops enter key rebel-held town amid airstrikes

Syrian government forces Tuesday entered a key rebel-held town in the country's northwest after surrounding it on three sides, sending thousands of people fleeing to safety in areas farther north, opposition activists and pro-government media said. The push into the town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province came as Syrian forces were also advancing against insurgent positions west of the city of Aleppo, according to state media and opposition activists. The town of Maaret al-Numan, which has been in rebel hands since 2012, sits on the highway linking Damascus with Aleppo.

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Stunning drone video shows devastation from helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, 8 others

Stunning NTSB drone footage shows a swath of devastation from the California helicopter crash that killed NBA star Kobe Bryant and eight others.

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Bolton, who may hold impeachment bombshell, has a history of settling scores

John Bolton has many times before been at the center of a maelstrom that is in good part of his own making. And each time, he has somehow emerged eager for more. 

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A robot named Little Peanut is delivering food to people in quarantine amid the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak

"Hello everyone. Cute Little Peanut is serving food to you now," the robot said, according to a translation. "Enjoy your meal."

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U.S. sees no imposed change to 'status quo' around Al-Aqsa mosque

A U.S. proposal for Israeli-Palestinian peace does not call for imposing any change to prayer arrangements around a key Jerusalem mosque compound which was also the site of ancient Jewish temples, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. Under a "status quo" agreement also involving neighboring Jordan, Jewish prayer is prevented there - a source of frustration for some Israelis. U.S. President Donald Trump's peace plan, whose unveiling on Tuesday was immediately welcomed by Israel and excoriated by the Palestinians, proposed that "people of every faith should be permitted to pray" at the disputed site in Jerusalem's Old City.

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Mexican president after Trump's border wall comments: 'We don't want to fight' with U.S.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Wednesday, “We don’t want to fight,” responding to reports that President Trump on Tuesday repeated his claim that Mexico is paying for a border wall.

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US forces recover two bodies from jet crash site in Afghanistan

US forces on Tuesday recovered two bodies near the wreckage of a military jet that crashed in a Taliban-controlled area of eastern Afghanistan, after Afghan forces trying to reach the scene clashed with insurgents. "The remains were found near the crash site, treated with dignity and respect by the local Afghan community, in accordance with their culture," the statement said. Ghazni police chief Khaled Wardak said US helicopters landed at the site in the late afternoon and were reinforced by Afghan security forces on the ground during the operation.

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