On the first weekend of early voting in the Nevada caucuses, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders came out swinging – at each other, but also at Michael Bloomberg.
“$60bn can buy you a lot of advertising,” Biden told NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, about the former New York mayor’s fortune and massive spending in the Democratic primary.
“But it can’t erase your record.”
Bloomberg is not competing in Nevada but targeting instead the Super Tuesday states which vote on 3 March. As he has risen in the polls – as Biden has faltered as the standard-bearer of the party’s moderate wing – he has attracted increasing attacks.
This week, Bloomberg has been confronted with past comments about stop-and-frisk policing policy which many deemed racist, questions over his analysis of the 2008 financial crisis and, on Saturday, a bombshell Washington Post report on his past comments about women and minorities while at the helm of his eponymous company.
Bloomberg reacted to the Post story by releasing testimony from female employees and saying: “As I’ve demonstrated throughout my career, I will always be a champion for women in the workplace.”
Speaking in Las Vegas on Saturday night, Sanders said Bloomberg implemented “racist policies like stop-and-frisk” and opposed the minimum wage and higher taxes on the wealthy during the Obama administration.
“The simple truth is that Mayor Bloomberg, with all his money, will not create the kind of excitement and energy we need to have the voter turnout we must have to defeat Donald Trump,” Sanders said.
On NBC, Biden said: “There’s a lot to talk about with Michael Bloomberg. You all are going to start focusing on him like you have on me … the last six months. You’re going to focus on him. His position on issues relating to the African American community, from stop-and-frisk to the way he talked about Obama.
“On several issues, like guns, he was a real ally. He was a real ally. But if you notice, he wouldn’t even endorse Barack in 2008. He wouldn’t endorse him. You know, he endorsed Bush. He endorsed, you know, the Republican before that. All of a sudden he’s his best buddy. You know … he would not endorse him.
“You take a look at the stop-and-frisk proposals … You take a look at what he’s done relative to the African American community. I’m anxious to debate Michael on the issues relating to, you know, what we’re going to face in Super Tuesday.”
Bloomberg ran for mayor of New York as a Republican before becoming an independent. Self-funding his run for the Democratic nomination, he is attracting support from the centre of the party including, as the Guardian revealed on Saturday, prominent supporters of Obama.
African American voters form a key bloc in the Democratic primary which will come firmly into play in South Carolina, the next state to vote after Nevada. Bloomberg and another billionaire, Tom Steyer, have begun to make inroads but in his NBC interview, Biden claimed “overwhelming support”.
“You can’t take it for granted,” he said. “Last time we ran it was basically taken for granted. I’m the only one who has the record and has the background and has the support. They know me. They know who I am.”
Biden told NBC he would have “to do really well” in South Carolina and added: “We’re just getting to the meat of getting to the number of delegates you need to be able to win this election. And I’m confident we’re going to be in good shape.”
Regarding Nevada, he took aim at Sanders over attacks by some supporters of the Vermont senator against female leaders of the Culinary Union, a key source of Democratic votes in a state dominated by the service and hospitality industries, which came out against Sanders’ Medicare for All healthcare plan.
Sanders issued a statement condemning the attacks but Biden said: “He may not be responsible for it but he has some accountability …
“You know me well enough to know if any of my supporters did that, I’d disown them. Flat disown them. The stuff that was said online, the way they threatened these two women who are leaders in that Culinary Union. It is outrageous.
“…I invite anybody to go and take a look, the things they said, the vicious, malicious, misogynistic things they said. The threats they put out. And to say ‘I disassociate’ is one thing. Find out who the hell they are, if any of them work for me. Fire them. Find out. See what’s going on.”
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
After prosecutors on Monday recommended a prison sentence of up to nine years for Mr. Stone, who was convicted of obstructing a congressional inquiry, Mr. Trump lashed out at federal law enforcement. Senior officials at the department, including Mr. Barr, overrode the recommendation the next day with a more lenient one, immediately prompting accusations of political interference, and the four lawyers on the Stone case abruptly withdrew in protest.
The Justice Department said the case had not been discussed with anyone at the White House, but that Mr. Trump congratulated Mr. Barr on his decision did little to dispel the perception of political influence. And as the president widened his attacks on law enforcement, Mr. Barr publicly reproached the president, saying that Mr. Trump’s statements undermined him, as well the department.
“I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me,” Mr. Barr said during a televised interview on Thursday with ABC News.
In the days after the interview, Mr. Trump has been relatively muted. He said on Twitter that he had not asked Mr. Barr to “do anything in a criminal case.” As president, he added, he had “the legal right to do so” but had “so far chosen not to!”
But lawyers across the Justice Department continue to worry about political interference from the president despite public pushback by Mr. Barr, long considered a close ally of Mr. Trump’s.
HARTFORD, CT (WFSB) — A 28-year-old year man is dead and four others were shot at a nightclub in the south end of Hartford early Sunday morning, according to Police.
Officers were called to the Majestic Lounge on Franklin Avenue around 1:30 a.m.
According to Police, two of the surviving victims are in surgery and the other two victims are stable.
One of the victims was being driven to the hospital by their brother and the car they were in crashed. However, they did make it to the hospital.
Preliminary information from Police indicates there was a disturbance inside the nightclub between two groups of people.
It was not a random shooting and it’s too early to determine if it’s gang related, according to Lt. Paul Cicero.
Past problems at the nightclub prompted officers to post outside the nightclub.
Cicero said having officers nearby was beneficial because they were able to provide medical aid immediately.
Police are reviewing footage to see what led to the shooting.
The identity of the victim who was fatally shot has not been released.
There are no reports of an arrest and Police have not identified a suspect.
Franklin Avenue was closed to traffic, but has since reopened.
So we finally have actual election results from the state of New Hampshire. They are clear, and they are authoritative and they are a little bit complicated. “Hello, America.” “We are here to stay.” “Our campaign is built for the long haul.” “We’re going to Nevada. We’re going to South Carolina. We’re going to win those states as well.” Bernie Sanders has won the state by a little bit. Two other candidates who had quite a strong night — Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. Not such a good night for Joe Biden or for Elizabeth Warren or for anybody else. “New Hampshire.” “New Hampshire.” “New Hampshire.” “We’re here together.” “New Hampshire.” “You all up here in New Hampshire.” After the debacle in Iowa, national attention has focused even more intensely on New Hampshire as the first real clean test of political momentum in this race. “People are still undecided.” “Uh, Bernie.” “Bernie Sanders, all the way.” “Mayor Pete.” “Amy Klobuchar.” “Oh, Joe Biden.” “I’ll just probably decide Tuesday, five minutes before I go in to vote.” New Hampshire is a classic swing state. “Ronald Reagan is the winner in the state of New Hampshire.” “Bill Clinton won it.” “It’s neck and neck.” “New Hampshire goes to Obama.” In 2016, Hillary Clinton prevailed over Donald Trump, but by a tiny margin. It’s a state that’s very much in play for 2020. “Four more, Trump. Four more years!” New Hampshire might gauge whether a candidate is able to appeal to certain other constituencies they will need in the general election. We have seen over the last week a real rivalry emerge between Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg. “Hot, fresh and vegan. Get your Bernie-on-a-stick.” New Hampshire is really home turf for Bernie Sanders. He comes from right next door in Vermont. And he also drew strong support, as he did in 2016, from younger voters and more liberal voters. “Young voters want Bernie because he’s fighting for their future. He’s not fighting for his future. He’s in his future.” [cheering] Bernie Sanders came into New Hampshire claiming momentum out of Iowa, based on his lead in the popular vote. “Finally, the votes were counted in Iowa. Took them a little while. We won the vote by 6,000 votes.” He has been somewhat more aggressive with his primary opponents here … “We don’t have a Super PAC.” … talking about the difference between himself … “We don’t want billionaires’ money.” … and candidates in the race, like Pete Buttigieg, who take money from billionaires and other big donors. “We are running a campaign for working people, funded by working people. And that is why we are going to win here in New Hampshire and all over this country.” [cheering] The biggest thing this might mean for Bernie Sanders is that he has clearly reasserted himself as the dominant leader on the left wing of the Democratic Party. And then there’s Pete Buttigieg. “Back in the Obama campaign, we called it ‘no drama Obama,’ and I haven’t come up with the right rhyme for Buttigieg.” [cheering] Pete Buttigieg has claimed, among the moderate candidates, a sense of momentum in New Hampshire that other folks were not able to take. “We can’t risk dividing Americans further. The idea that you’ve either got to be for a revolution or you got to be for the status quo leaves most of us out.” His message here has been pretty similar to his message in Iowa, but really focused on the idea that he’s the candidate who can win crossover support in the general election. “We need a politics that brings all of us in because all of us need a new and better president.” After finishing at the top in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Buttigieg now has a tremendous opportunity to put himself forward at the national level as the leader of moderate Democrats. Announcer: “Senator Amy Klobuchar!” The word that Amy Klobuchar supporters are using to describe what happened here is ‘Klomentum.’ She came to New Hampshire after a fifth-place finish in Iowa without a whole lot of wind in her sails. “It’s been funny suddenly seeing media come to all of our events.” [laughter] Things just turned around for her dramatically. If Klobuchar had not finished so strong in New Hampshire, it might have been the end of her campaign. “If you are tired of the extremes in our politics, and you are tired of the noise and the nonsense, you have a home with me.” She gets the chance to fight onward to Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday. I would not make any plans that are based on knowing a Democratic nominee anytime soon. Well, I am going to Las Vegas next, so I probably would have a chance to do that.
WASHINGTON — When intelligence officials briefed President Donald Trump on the most worrisome terrorist threats during the first two years of his tenure, they regularly mentioned the names of the senior terror figures the CIA was working hardest to find and kill, including the leader of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri.
Trump would ultimately greenlight successful strikes on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Yemeni al Qaeda chief Qasim al-Rimi — perhaps the most significant names on the CIA list of potential U.S. targets.
But he was more interested in a young and less influential figure much farther down the list, according to two people familiar with the briefings, because he recognized the name.
“He would say, ‘I’ve never heard of any of these people. What about Hamza bin Laden?'” one former official said.
“That was the only name he knew,” a Pentagon official added.
Although Osama bin Laden’s youngest son was not believed to be planning attacks, the U.S. ultimately carried out an airstrike that killed him in 2018, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter. At first, officials weren’t sure of his fate, but in July, NBC News was the first to report that U.S. officials believed he was dead.
An examination of the process that led to the strike against Hamza bin Laden puts a spotlight on how Trump has approached what is among the most weighty responsibilities of the U.S. president in the post 9/11 era: deciding which of America’s enemies should be marked for death.
Hamza Bin Laden in a video released by the CIA in 2017.CIA via AP file
Trump’s recent decision to target Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani — in the face of intelligence suggesting that Iran would seek to retaliate for the Quds Force commander’s death by killing Americans — illustrates the high stakes nature of such decisions. Improvements in weaponry and in the technology for finding targets have given this president lethal options his predecessors never had, but the greater freedom of action can make the decisions tougher.
Yet Trump — who doesn’t read or digest detailed intelligence assessments, according to current and former officials — says he operates on instinct. “I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me,” he said in answer to a question about the economy during a November 2018 interview.
“The president’s highest priority is keeping Americans safe,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He and his administration have successfully targeted the most dangerous and deadly terrorists in the world in order to protect the American people, including Hamza bin Laden, al-Baghdadi, Qassem Soleimani, and Qasim al-Rimi. These and countless other measures that have removed dozens of high value targets exemplify this administration’s resolve to defeat terrorism.”
The successful strike on al-Rimi, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was announced by the White House on Feb. 7. He and Baghdadi, the ISIS leader killed in a U.S. commando raid that Trump authorized in October 2019, were at or near the top of every intelligence priority list, officials say.
But former CIA official Douglas London, who led an agency unit targeting senior terrorists in 2018, says that what he called Trump’s “obsession” with bin Laden’s son “is one example of the president’s preference for a ‘celebrity’ targeted killing versus prioritizing options that could prove better for U.S. security.”
In a piece for the website JustSecurity.com, which London says was reviewed and deemed unclassified by the CIA, he wrote, “CIA had not overlooked the value in Hamza’s name recognition, nor his musings posted by al Qaeda’s media cell, but he was young, lacked battlefield experience, and had yet to develop a serious following.”
Few if any counterterrorism experts argue that Hamza bin Laden was not a lawful target. He was urging attacks on Americans on behalf of a terror group with which the U.S. is at war, and he was seen by experts as a possible future al Qaeda leader.
But the CIA assessment at the time was that he was not next in the line of succession, and was not a top threat, according to London and other U.S. intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
This image provided by SITE Intelligence Group shows Ayman al-Zawahri as he gives a eulogy for fellow al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a video released on jihadist forums on June 8, 2011.SITE via AFP – Getty Images file
“Despite intelligence assessments showing the greater dangers posed by Zawahiri … and the unlikelihood Hamza was in the immediate line of succession, the president thought differently,” London wrote. “He regularly demanded updates on Hamza and insisted we accelerate our efforts to go after him.”
Trump’s wishes “necessarily influenced the alignment of the Intelligence Community’s focus and resources,” London wrote, in an unusual peek behind the scenes into the secret process of targeting terrorists.
London suggested that politics may have been a factor in Trump’s decision-making.
“It was not lost on us working the issue that the president pressed hardest for results in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections,” he wrote.
The Pentagon, the Department of State and various intelligence agencies had input into the process of nominating Hamza bin Laden for lethal action, according to a former senior U.S. official directly familiar with the matter.
But Hamza bin Laden was not a top priority until Trump’s exhortations influenced the extent to which the CIA devoted scarce manhunting resources to tracking him, according to London’s account.
Exile in Iran
For a long time, Hamza bin Laden was an afterthought.
In the wake of 9/11 when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, he was among bin Laden’s family members who made their way to Iran, where he lived for a number of years, some of them in detention, intelligence officials say.
But in August 2015, al-Zawahri appeared in a video and introduced the younger bin Laden, calling him “a lion from the den of al Qaeda.”
Bin Laden didn’t appear in the video but said in an audio-only portion, “What America and its allies fear the most is that we take the battlefield from Kabul, Baghdad and Gaza to Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv, and to take it to all the American, Jewish and Western interests in the world.”
Protesters hold a photo of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani during a demonstration in Tehran on Jan. 3, 2020.Ali Mohammadi / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
He quickly became a fixture in al Qaeda messages, and counterterrorism officials took notice. The news media began reporting on the possibility that he was being groomed as a future terror leader. After the death of the senior bin Laden at the hands of Navy SEALs in Pakistan, and amid the rise of the Islamic State militant group or ISIS, al Qaeda was struggling for relevance.
By the time of his father’s death, officials believed Hamza bin Laden had relocated to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
Still, during the Obama administration, there was little focus on Hamza bin Laden, three former senior officials said. He did not figure in intelligence assessments about the terror threat.
“I don’t remember a single meeting at which we focused on Hamza bin Laden,” said Joshua Geltzer, who was the top counterterrorism official on the National Security Council until early in the Trump administration.
“He had the name but he didn’t have a lot of working relationships with people, and he didn’t have battlefield experience,” a former senior counterterrorism official added.
In November 2017, the CIA released documents seized in the bin Laden operation, including a video of Hamza bin Laden’s wedding to the daughter of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta.
Fox News features Hamza
Trump was president by then, and the video prompted a spate of television coverage. Fox News, a favored source of information for the president, devoted significant airtime to the release of the CIA documents and the video of the younger bin Laden.
Inside the U.S. government — and among U.S. allies, according to a senior Western intelligence official — there was heightened concern that Hamza bin Laden could refresh al Qaeda’s ailing brand.
But there was no evidence he was involved in attacks or even inspiring them, experts say.
“It is not clear at all that Hamza presented an actual serious threat of inspiring attacks,” said Seth Jones, a counterterrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who advises the U.S. government.
But Jones said he believes Hamza bin Laden was a justifiable target.
Nonetheless, he said, “I can’t remember a case where I’ve seen an interrogation of a terrorist who said he was inspired by Hamza bin Laden.”
In March of last year, the U.S. government announced a $1 million reward for information helping to locate Hamza bin Laden. There was a consensus that such a step was warranted, officials said.
Still, the size of the reward was telling. It paled in comparison to the $10 million offered for senior al Qaeda operative Saif al-Adel, or the $25 million the U.S. had once offered for the senior bin Laden.
“Hamza bin Laden is wanted for questioning in connection with his membership in the al Qaeda organization and his public declarations threatening the security of the United States,” the wanted poster said.
But by then, officials now believe, Hamza bin Laden was already dead.
Al Qaeda leader al-Zawahri and his top lieutenants are believed to be very much alive.
The latest: The first coronavirus death outside of Asia was reported in France.
Americans aboard the coronavirus-stricken Diamond Princess cruise liner off the coast of Japan were notified by they U.S. government that they would be evacuated, but will be required to undergo a 14-day quarantine once back in the United States.
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What is coronavirus and how does it spread? Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses whose effects range from causing the common cold to triggering much more serious diseases, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Here’s what we know so far.
CNN’s Ben Tinker in Atlanta; Steven Jiang and Yong Xiong in Beijing; Mick Krever in Yokohama; Helen Regan, Jessie Yeung, Carly Walsh, Laura He, Isaac Yee, Sandi Sidhu and Nectar Gan in Hong Kong; and Lindsay Isaac, Zahid Mahmood, Charles Riley and Meera Senthilingam in London contributed reporting.
Early voting gets underway in Nevada and Bloomberg considers Hillary Clinton as his running mate: Phil Wegmann reports
RealClearPolitics (RCP) political reporter Philip Wegmann joined “America’s News HQ” Saturday to talk about what candidates in the upcoming Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary have the advantage.
“But if you look at that polling, what it shows is that Joe Biden was once in first place in Nevada. Now he’s trailing in second to Bernie Sanders, a trend that is reflected in our national data at RealClearPolitics,” Wegmann said. “And I think that the reason here is that, you know, Joe Biden had those two losses and that also there are a lot of Democratic voters who feel like they now have permission to vote for Bernie Sanders because of his strong wins in Iowa and New Hampshire.”
“I think what it generally shows, because we can’t confirm that yet… It shows that Michael Bloomberg and his team are very good at inserting himself into the conversation,” Wegmann said.
“Remember, this is someone who really has not had much support in any of these states thus far, but what he’s even able to do with his billions of dollars and with his campaign infrastructure, he’s been able to insert himself into national news and really, at least on paper, create a campaign that could potentially compete anywhere,” he said.
The RCP reporter also said the Bloomberg campaign was “very happy” with its strategy and would very much like to face Bernie Sanders one-on-one in the latter part of the primaries.
“And if you talk to the Bloomberg campaign, they’re very happy with what’s going on right now because they feel like Joe Biden is imploding. And they also feel like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg are not necessarily the alternatives needed to go up against Bernie Sanders,” Wegmann said. “But make no mistake, [Bloomberg] would love nothing more than to run against the Democratic socialist for the nomination.”
Attorney General William Barr’s handpicked top prosecutor presiding over the Roger Stone case reportedly caved to prosecutors seeking a steep prison sentence for the longtime friend of President Trump.
But the four line prosecutors, including three who served on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, threatened to withdraw from the case if their penalty request was diminished, and with Monday’s court deadline approaching, Shea relented.
“Mr. Shea — new to the job — suffered a moment of cowardice and submitted to this ultimatum,” Strassel wrote.
Once DOJ leadership learned of the tall sentencing recommendation for Stone, who was convicted of witness tampering and lying to Congress, they moved to overrule the prosecutors, suggesting instead up to four years of prison time. In short order, the four federal prosecutors withdrew from the case, and one quit his job entirely.
A Justice Department representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this report.
As Trump tweeted about the original guidance early Tuesday, calling it a “miscarriage of justice” before the reversal, Democrats have accused him and Attorney General William Barr of interfering in the case, demanding investigations. Prosecutors from around the country told the media that the Stone situation has increased their anxiety about working on any cases that might attract interest from Trump for fear that Barr would not back them up.
Barr said he was “very surprised” by the tougher suggested penalty but claimed the decision to scale it back was made before Trump slammed the guidance. He also told ABC News on Thursday that Trump’s constant public commentary on the Justice Department makes “it impossible for me to do my job” and claimed that his work would remain independent from the president’s political desires.
The White House said Trump “wasn’t bothered” by Barr condemning his tweets, but the president tweeted about Barr the very next day.
“‘The President has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case,'” Trump said Friday on Twitter, quoting Barr. “This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to!”
Still, the Chinese authorities have acknowledged the difficulty in knowing the outbreak’s precise scale. On Thursday, officials added more than 14,800 new cases to the tally of those infected, the largest one-day increase recorded so far. They attributed the jump to a change in the way they diagnosed confirmed cases.
The United States will also widen its search for possible infections: American health officials in five cities will begin testing some people with flulike symptoms for the coronavirus, according to Dr. Messonnier of the C.D.C.
The constant changes have left people caught in the middle of the outbreak confused and frustrated.
Rachel Torres, 24, a newlywed on the cruise ship quarantined in Japan, said that she and her husband, Tyler, would take the evacuation flight, though they were frustrated that it had not been offered earlier.
Gay Courter, 75, an American novelist from Crystal River, Fla., near Tampa, said she and her husband, Philip, would also leave the ship despite the unexpected quarantine period.
“This is what we’ve been asking for, because we never felt quarantine on this ship was safe,” she said.
Elian Peltier, Edward Wong and Elaine Yu contributed reporting. Claire Fu contributed research.
The 66-year-old woman who abducted her granddaughter at gunpoint from Ochsner Hospital in Jefferson Parish on Friday has been found, Jefferson Parish officials said.
Evelyn Miller was found at a hotel in Bogalusa around 5 p.m. Saturday, said Capt. Jason Rivarde, spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, and she was arrested by the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies are searching for a woman who brandished a gun at Ochsner Medical Center staffers while demanding t…
Miller’s 12-year-old granddaughter, Adreana, was found during the arrest and was unharmed.
Rivarde said Miller will be extradited to Jefferson Parish.
Miller pointed a gun at a security guard and other staffers while demanding her granddaughter’s release from the hospital on Friday, the JPSO said.
While escaping with the child, Miller pushed one nurse to the ground and struck a security guard with her vehicle, deputies said. However, no one was injured.
Louisiana State Police issued a Level II child endangerment alert after the two left the hospital around 5 p.m.
Louisiana State Police have issued a Level II child endangerment alert and are asking for the public’s help to find 12-year-old Andreana Mille…
An arrest warrant was issued for Miller for simple kidnapping, five counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, two counts of simple battery and violation of a firearm-free zone, deputies said.
The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) named a new chairman Saturday after its last leader resigned over the party’s mishandling of the Democratic caucuses last week.
The IDP named state Rep. Mark Smith (D) as its new chair, replacing outgoing chair Troy Price, who announced his resignation Wednesday.
The Iowa Democratic Party is thrilled to announce Representative Mark Smith as our new Chair! pic.twitter.com/MNbQ9RPx3K
Smith won the job after a vote in an emergency meeting of the party’s State Central Committee in Des Moines. He ran for the role against three other candidates.
Video showed Price receiving a standing ovation after he officially stepped down from the helm of the IDP.
A standing ovation as @troymprice steps down as chair of @iowademocrats. “Even if I no longer have the gavel, I look forward to continuing the fight along with you,” Price said, noting the party’s continuing mission: “to win in November.” pic.twitter.com/RGGKUbee8u
“Goodbye, @iowademocrats – it’s been the honor of my life to work with you and move our state forward. I look forward to fighting alongside all of you to win in November,” Price tweeted.
Goodbye, @iowademocrats – it’s been the honor of my life to work with you and move our state forward. I look forward to fighting along side all of you to win in November. #BelieveInIowa
The turnover at the top of the IDP comes after inconsistencies in reporting delayed the results of last week’s Iowa caucuses and led to questions about who won the contest.
Buttigieg has appeared to have edged out Sanders in the share of delegates, but Sanders won the most votes. The Associated Press has still not declared a winner to the contest, citing technical errors and narrow margins.
Price was largely slammed for the IDP’s handling of the caucuses, particularly over the use of a reporting app that was supposed to speed up delivery of the results, but instead produced the inconsistencies.
However, during Price’s tenure, the IDP helped lead the fight to flip two congressional seats in 2018, leading Democrats to hold three out of four spots in the state’s House delegation.
The tensions reached a boiling point on Friday when the union, which represents some 60,000 hospitality workers in Nevada, announced it would not be endorsing a candidate ahead of the state’s Democratic caucuses.
Geoconda Argüello-Kline, the group’s secretary-treasurer, said Sanders’ supporters had “viciously attacked the Culinary Union and working families in Nevada” over its health care stance.
Hours later, the Sanders campaign issued a statement calling on “supporters of all campaigns not to engage in bullying or ugly personal attacks.”
“Our campaign is building a multigenerational, multiracial movement of love, compassion and justice,” the statement read. “We can certainly disagree on issues, but we must do it in a respectful manner.”
Biden, who was once viewed as the odds-on favorite to win the union’s endorsement before heavy losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, said it wasn’t sufficient for the campaign to just “disassociate” itself from the attacks.
He made an impassioned pleas to Sanders to “find out who the hell” the supporters were and to investigate whether they’re working on or are employed by the campaign.
“Fire them. Find out. See what’s going on,” he said.
A poll released Friday shows Sanders leading the 2020 Democratic field in Nevada with 25 percent of the state’s likely Democratic caucusgoers supporting him. Biden came in second place with 18 percent of respondents.
Nevada will hold its Democratic presidential caucuses on Feb. 22.
A further 70 people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total to 355, as three countries say they will fly their citizens on the ship home. It comes as China’s National Health Commission announced the death toll inside the country had risen to 1,665, with 68,500 infections.
The US embassy in Japan announced on Saturday that more than 400 US nationals would be flown home from the quarantined Diamond Princess, currently docked in the port of Yokohama, south of Tokyo.
The US embassy said in a letter to passengers that, based on the high number of confirmed coronavirus cases, passengers and crew members were considered to be “at high risk of exposure”. US charter flights are expected to arrive on Sunday.
Hong Kong, which has 330 citizens on board, said it will offer nationals an evacuation flight. The Canadian government also confirmed late on Saturday that it had chartered a plane to bring it citizens who are passengers on the ship home.
Canadian passengers who exhibit symptoms of the coronavirus infection will not be permitted to board the flight and will instead be transferred to the Japanese health care system to receive appropriate care, the government said.
After arriving in Canada, the passengers will undergo a 14-day period of quarantine, the statement added.
The Diamond Princess has been stuck in Japan after a passenger who had disembarked in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus.
The Australian embassy in Tokyo emailed citizens aboard the cruise ship to say the federal government was also examining options to assist Australians.
The embassy told citizens it understood it was a “very stressful” situation for them and that Australian medical officers were working closely with Japanese authorities to support them.
Passengers wearing masks walk on a deck of the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Yokohama. Photograph: Franck Robichon/EPA
The British government has faced mounting pressure to evacuate its citizens, with one passenger, David Abel, who had been livestreaming from the ship, saying on Saturday that he had “given up on anybody in the UK”.
Seventy new cases were confirmed on the cruise liner on Sunday according to Japan’s minister of health, labor and welfare, Katsunobu Katoconfirmed, taking the number of cases on the ship over 350.
“So far, we have conducted tests for 1,219 individuals. Of those, 355 people tested positive. Of those, 73 individuals are not showing symptoms,” Kato said.
Passengers have been mostly confined to their cabins since 3 February, after measures were introduced to try to stop the spread of the disease onboard. The quarantine is due to end on Wednesday, though it is not clear if the emergence of new cases will prompt such restrictions to be extended.
There is also growing concern over possible infections among people who disembarked from the MS Westerdam in Cambodia on Friday, after it was confirmed that one passenger, who later flew to Malaysia, tested positive for the virus.
The 83-year-old woman flew from Cambodia to Malaysia with 144 others from the ship on Friday. The woman’s husband tested negative for the disease, Malaysia’s health ministry said.
The ship’s owner, Holland America, said: “While the first results have been reported, they are preliminary at this point and we are awaiting secondary testing for confirmation.”
Cambodian authorities called on Malaysia to review its test results.
The ship had been turned away by five countries, despite having no reported sickness on board at the time.
Around 68,500 people in mainland China are now confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus, and 1,665 people have died from Covid-19, China’s National Health Commission said on Sunday. The figures included a further 142, in the 24-hours to midnight on Saturday, and a further 2,000 new confirmed cases.
The daily total of new cases represented a drop for the third day in a row, but researchers have advised caution. The dip in reported numbers follows a spike last week when Hubei province changed the way it was counting cases of the virus.
Facing criticism over Beijing’s handling of the outbreak, president Xi Jinping said in a speech reported by state media on Saturday evening that he had given instructions on fighting the disease as early as 7 January. The admission has fuelled questions over why the potential dangers of the virus were not conveyed fully to the public at an earlier date.
Most reports of the disease remain concentrated in Hubei, where the outbreak began, but cases have been confirmed across Asia, Australia, the US, Europe and, mostly recently, Africa. Four deaths have occurred outside mainland China – in Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and France.
France’s health minister, Anges Buzyn, said: “We have to get our health system ready to face a possible pandemic propagation of the virus, and therefore the spreading of the virus across France.” Her comments followed the death of a 80-year-old Chinese man at a Paris hospital.
Robin Thompson, an expert in mathematical epidemiology at Britain’s University of Oxford, said that with nearly 50 cases in Europe, a death was not surprising.
“The most important thing to point out, however, is that there still hasn’t been sustained person-to-person transmission in Europe,” he said.
China has dispatched more than 25,000 health workers to help Hubei as of Feb. 14, as the central Chinese province seeks to contain the spread of the new coronavirus, state-owned Xinhua reported, citing a senior official at the National Health Commission.
“The total number of medical workers has far exceeded that for rescue in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, and we did it at a much faster speed,” Wang Hesheng, deputy head of the commission, reportedly said. He was referring to a magnitude 8 earthquake in May 2008 that hit southwest China’s Sichuan Province, that killed an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 people.
Wang said that of the 25,633 medical workers sent to Hubei, about 20,000 are now working in Wuhan city — where the virus is thought to have first emerged. The official said that number does not include medical staff sent by the military, according to Xinhua.
Passengers walk along the deck of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, on which about 3,600 people have been quarantined because of fears of the new COVID-19 coronavirus.
Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
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Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
Passengers walk along the deck of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, on which about 3,600 people have been quarantined because of fears of the new COVID-19 coronavirus.
Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
Updated at 4:28 p.m. ET
The U.S. State Department is sending a charter plane to evacuate Americans aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship that is in quarantine in Japan because of the spread of the coronavirus named COVID-19.
On Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo sent a letter to U.S. citizens aboard the ship informing them of the planned extraction scheduled for Sunday night.
Once back in the U.S., passengers from the cruise ship will be forced to undergo another period of quarantine at either Travis Air Force Base in California or Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. According to the embassy letter:
“Travelers returning to the United States from high-risk areas are required to undergo quarantine. Accordingly, you will need to undergo further quarantine of 14 days when you arrive in the United States. We understand this is frustrating and an adjustment, but these measures are consistent with the careful policies we have instituted to limit the potential spread of the disease. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation and will provide all the assistance we can to support the quarantine process.”
John Montgomery and his wife, Carol, from San Clemente, Calif., are among the nearly 400 U.S. citizens on the Diamond Princess. They will be taking the State Department’s charter plane and said they are “excited and relieved” to return to the U.S.
“We just didn’t think this quarantine is a valid quarantine, and we felt it would be much safer for us to get off this ship and be quarantined somewhere else,” Montgomery told NPR.
After undergoing 10 days of quarantine on the ship, Montgomery said he and his wife feel fine. Despite it being “a bit of a bummer” that they’ll have to undergo 14 more days of quarantine in the U.S., he said they understand the precaution.
“Because we’ve been kind of mixed up with all the people on the ship … we understand why, through an abundance of caution, that an additional testing and evaluation and quarantine would guarantee that we’re not bringing it back to the states,” he said.
Another 67 people aboard the ship tested positive for the coronavirus, Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato announced Saturday. In all, nearly 300 people aboard the ship have tested positive.
At least 50,580 cases of the coronavirus have been identified globally as of Saturday, according to the World Health Organization. The total number of deaths stands at 1,526, with all but two fatalities occurring in China.
The quarantine of the cruise ship and its 3,600 passengers is set to end Wednesday. But as more cases have been identified onboard, it’s unclear whether Japan’s ministry of health will extend the quarantine.
If U.S. citizens wait for the ship’s quarantine to end and choose not take the charter flight, the State Department said, they “will be unable to return to the United States for a period of time.”
The State Department said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would make a final decision on when passengers would be allowed to return to the U.S. if they did not take the charter plane.
The Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement on Saturday that the returning cruise ship passengers “will be housed separately from individuals already in quarantine from previous Wuhan repatriation flights.”
All travelers from Japan will be screened multiple times during the repatriation process, including before leaving the ship, before the plane takes off, in flight and again upon arrival in the U.S.
HHS added that the risk of exposure and infection to the coronavirus remains low in the U.S.
The Department of Defense announced Saturday that it is extending the use of temporary housing facilities to quarantine travelers and passengers undergoing repatriation through March 15.
The plan supports policies such as a $15 per hour minimum wage and paid family and sick leave while also proposing efforts to strengthen unions — all platforms that have gained widespread backing among the party in recent years.
“I started out in an entry-level job, and in building my business, I have always believed that our company’s most valuable asset is our 20,000 employees – and that’s why we are committed to providing good pay and the best benefits money can buy, including industry-leading paid parental leave,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
“Donald Trump inherited his wealth and does nothing but pay lip service to the working people who drive America. It’s past time to increase wages, guarantee paid leave and make it easier to organize – and, as president, I’ll get it done,” he added.
Bloomberg says he intends to boost workers’ pay by increasing the minimum wage and expanding the number of workers eligible for overtime.
He’d also mandate that employers offer 12 weeks of paid family leave and seven paid sick days for workers while guaranteeing that public sector employees have the right to unionize and bargain collectively.
Bloomberg’s plan also includes several other proposals that have widespread Democratic support, such as preventing gender discrimination in the workplace, expanding the government’s power to enforce labor laws and supporting legislation to protect pensions and retirement savings.
The release of the plan comes as Bloomberg works to gin up support for his presidential bid, which he launched in November, months after several of his Democratic competitors.
The former mayor is working to make up ground by using his personal fortune to fund an advertising blitz across the country and support a burgeoning campaign staff. He is skipping the first four nominating states, but recent national polls have shown him creeping into third place. He is one poll away from qualifying for the next primary debate.
“I hope there are no more resignations,” Mr. Barr said. “We, we like our prosecutors and hope they stay.”
As Mr. Trump has pointed out on Twitter, two of those prosecutors — Aaron Zelinsky and Adam C. Jed — helped carry out the special counsel’s investigation, which Mr. Trump detested. Their supervisors reassured them this week that they would suffer no retaliation for withdrawing from the Stone case.
Timothy J. Shea, a close ally of Mr. Barr’s who took over this month as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sent his staff an email of support this week. “While there are times where reasonable minds may disagree, I respect the work that each of you do, and I will do my best to support our work,” he wrote.
Mr. Shea’s role is especially fraught because the Washington office, the largest in the country with 300 lawyers, often handles politically sensitive cases and inherited several prosecutions begun under Mr. Mueller. At least some in that office privately complained that Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr both treated Mr. Shea’s predecessor, Jessie K. Liu, shabbily.
Ms. Liu, a Trump appointee, was viewed in the office as a leader who helped protect prosecutors from political meddling. But her relationship with other department officials grew strained, especially after she decided there was insufficient evidence to seek an indictment of Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy director of the F.B.I. and a frequent target of the president, according to two people familiar with the situation.
She was nominated for a top job at the Treasury Department and transferred there this month to await her confirmation. Then this week, the president decided to rescind her nomination, even over Mr. Barr’s objections, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
WASHINGTON – In a new television interview, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had not planned to tear up her copy of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech until she read it, saw it was “terrible,” and wanted to “get attention” to its “objectionable” parts.
Speaking with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an excerpted portion of an interview set to air on Monday, Pelosi defended herself amid heavy criticism from Republicans for tearing up her copy of the speech after Trump finished his remarks on Feb. 4.
“I had no intention of doing that when we went to the State of the Union,” Pelosi said.
After reading through about a third of the speech, she said she thought, “this is terrible,” and “realized that almost every page had something in it that was objectionable.”
Pelosi said she was disappointed with the speech’s failure to mention any of the legislation House Democrats had passed, and “we had little press on it, and it seems that if you want to get press, you have to get attention, so I thought, well, let’s get attention on the fact that what he said here today was not true.”
Pelosi noted she was “departing” from her usual policy of not criticizing the president while overseas, as the CNN interview was conducted at the Munich Security Forum.
“I’m not talking about him personally. I’m just talking about his State of the Union address,” she said.
Pelosi’s act of protest was met with fury by Republicans, who denounced her actions as offensive to soldiers mentioned during the speech, as well as a breach of decorum towards the president. House Republicans introduced a measure to condemn her remarks, but the House voted to set the measure aside on a party-line vote on Feb. 6.
On Feb. 7, while leaving the White House, Trump suggested her tearing up the speech was “illegal” and that “she broke the law,” although he did not cite a specific law. Multiple legal experts told USA TODAY laws cited by several of Trump’s allies likely did not apply to her actions.
Kel McClanahan, an attorney specializing in national security law and information and privacy law, told USA TODAY the idea that the law was broken “needs to die.”
The law applies to “files lodged or officially filed with the government, agency, or court,” explained McClanahan, the executive director of public interest law firm National Security Counselors. Depriving the government of the use of the file would be illegal, he said, but destroying a copy would not be.
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