Daily Global News: February 2020

Saturday, February 29, 2020

South Carolina exit polls: Black and moderate voters fuel Biden to victory

The former vice president won 60 percent of the black vote and received solid backing from moderate and religious voters Saturday.

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Americans of all parties agree: Joe Biden is old, Michael Bloomberg is rich

Pollsters at The Associated Press and NORC gave the public a chance to describe presidential candidates in one word or short phrase. The results were... telling.Democrats described former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg as nearly equal parts "smart," "young," and "gay." Independents and Republicans were far more likely to describe him as "gay," as well as "inexperienced," and "centrist." Philanthropist Tom Steyer was more overwhelmingly described as "rich" by Democrats, while independents and Republicans opted for "inexperienced."While former Vice President Joe Biden scored some mentions of "good person" among Democrats, he mostly got "old." Independents and Republicans also mostly called him "old," followed by "corrupt" and "creepy."Democrats and independents similarly described Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as "old" at the highest rate, though Republicans went straight for "socialist," followed by "old," and "communist."> How poll respondents described 2020 candidates in one (or a few more) words. https://t.co/I53LZ1dSR1 pic.twitter.com/GbcahfoHCl> > — Philip Bump (@pbump) February 28, 2020Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is older than Biden and just months younger than Sanders, is universally regarded as "rich" (a fair assessment), and Republicans said he's "buying the election."Democrats were split in describing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as "smart" and "strong," though independents and Republicans view her primarily as a "liar," as well as "crazy" and a "woman," which is hardly up for debate.While the Democratic candidates were generally regarded more positively by members of their own party, surveyed Republicans didn't come up with great words for President Trump. Most Republicans simply said "president," followed by "bumbling" and "jerk."The AP-NORC poll was conducted Feb. 12-16 via phone interviews with 1,074 adults. The margin of error is ±4.2 percentage points. View the full results at AP-NORC.More stories from theweek.com Stock markets are headed for a 40 percent plunge, says economist who predicted financial crisis Trump mocks Bloomberg's height, Biden's age in wild CPAC speech The growing viral threat

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Setomaa: The Estonia-Russia border tearing apart an ancient people

The Setos' ancestral home straddles Estonia's border with Russia and has become difficult to cross.

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Your pictures on the theme of 'railways'

Each week, we publish a gallery of readers' pictures on a set theme. This week it is "railways"

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Gatherings banned, travel restricted as coronavirus cases grow worldwide

Leaders in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas rolled out bans on big gatherings, and stricter travel restrictions as cases of the new coronavirus spread around the world.

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Biden Wins South Carolina as Race Against Sanders Intensifies

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Is This Coronavirus ‘the Big One’?

For decades, experts’ warnings to prepare have gone unheeded.

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The Case for Elizabeth Warren

She wants to purify capitalism so that it works as it should.

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Israel’s Rihanna Is Arab and Jewish

A Muslim-born pop star who converted to Judaism and sings in Arabic and Hebrew has captured the country’s heart.

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Shifting Fervor, and Favorites, in the Presidential Race

Readers share their choice for president and how it has changed in recent weeks.

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A. B. Stoddard: 'Too late' for Biden to catch up to Sanders

Ahead of the primary results, RealClearPolitics Associate Editor A.B. Stoddard said it may be "too late" for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden even if he does win South Carolina on Saturday, saying that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is likely too far ahead in his quest to secure the nomination.

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Trump jokes Biden won't be governing as president: 'He'll be in a home'

President Trump used part of his CPAC speech on Saturday to criticize former Vice President Joe Biden's mental acuity, joking that he wouldn't be able to handle being president if he won in November.

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Biden projected to win South Carolina primary, in crucial boost for campaign

Former Vice President Joe Biden is projected to win the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, claiming his first victory of the 2020 race in what amounts to a crucial boost for his struggling campaign ahead of Super Tuesday.

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Trump Team Testing ‘Off-the-Shelf’ Drugs to Cure Coronavirus

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is testing existing “off-the-shelf” drugs to combat the coronavirus, a cabinet official said Saturday.A national lab in Tennessee recently made “an important discovery” involving existing drugs, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland.“The scientists at our Oak Ridge National Laboratory were able to look at the protein strains and determine -- perhaps, it’s still early -- that we can find some off-the-shelf drugs that can help us not only cure the disease but stop the spread of the infection,” Brouillette said.Brouillette was responding to a question about what his agency is doing to help combat the virus, which has caused markets to plunge and killed nearly 3,000 people across the globe. In the U.S., where 22 cases have been reported, the virus has killed one person -- a woman from Washington state -- and more cases are likely, President Donald Trump said Saturday.In addition to the laboratory tests, Brouillette said he’s harnessing the power of his agency’s “super computers” as well as artificial intelligence capabilities to assist organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and the World Heath Organization to conduct modeling on the virus.“We want to know how far is this going to spread and at what point might it peak,” he said.To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Natter in Washington at anatter5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Matthew G. Miller, Virginia Van NattaFor 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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Man whose son was found encased in cement sentenced to 72 years in prison

A Colorado man whose seven-year-old son was repeatedly abused before being found encased in concrete in a Denver storage unit has been sentenced to 72 years in prison for the death.Leland Pankey received the sentence on Friday, with one count of child abuse landing him 48 years in prison and 24 years for tampering with the body.

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After chemical attack and kidnapping, migrant mom tries again to enter U.S.

“They’re putting us at risk,” the asylum-seeker said. “After all we’ve been through.”

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South Korea virus cases surge as WHO sounds maximum alert

South Korea reported its biggest surge in new coronavirus cases on Saturday as concerns grew of a possible epidemic in the United States and the World Health Organization raised its risk alert to its highest level. The virus has rapidly spread across the world in the past week, causing stock markets to sink to their lowest levels since the 2008 global financial crisis over fears that the disease could wreak havoc on the world economy. The vast majority of infections have been in China but more daily cases are now logged outside the country, with South Korea, Italy and Iran emerging as major hotspots.

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Billionaire Tom Steyer shakes up primary with slavery reparations plan

For centuries, South Carolina’s Charleston was the largest port of entry for the transatlantic slave trade. Now, billionaire presidential candidate Tom Steyer is shaking up the state’s Democratic primary by advocating slavery reparations for African-Americans.

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The FDA just announced the first drug shortage caused by the coronavirus, but wouldn't identify the drug

China is a critical player in the global supply chain for drugs, as many ingredients in the medicines we take are manufactured there.

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Rejected by Jamaica, Caymans over virus fears, cruise ship docks in Mexico

A cruise ship turned away from Jamaica and the Cayman Islands after a crew member tested positive for flu has docked in Mexico and passengers will be allowed to disembark as long as "health standards" are met, the country's president said Thursday. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters that the Meraviglia, which has been anchored off Cozumel island in the Caribbean since Wednesday, "is being allowed to dock" and those aboard may be allowed off. The operator, MSC Cruises, lashed out at authorities for refusing to allow it to dock at its previous destinations for "acting out of fears" over the new coronavirus.

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South Carolina primary: Joe Biden projected to win

It comes as a major boost to the former vice-president's flagging presidential campaign.

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Afghan conflict: What will Taliban do after signing US deal?

A sense of cautious optimism is rising, but Afghanistan's political future is yet to be decided.

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Mainland China reports 573 new coronavirus cases on Feb. 29

Mainland China reported 573 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Feb. 29, up from 427 on the previous day, the country's health authority said on Sunday.

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Friday, February 28, 2020

Canadian National Railway starts calling back employees laid off during rail blockade

Canadian National Railway Co has started calling back many of the 450 workers it laid off earlier this month in eastern Canada, when blockades crippled operations on strategic rail lines, according to a company email sent to customers on Friday.

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Biotechnology trade group taps former Biogen CEO as its coronavirus czar

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the biotechnology industry's largest trade association, told Reuters on Friday that former Biogen Inc CEO George Scangos would coordinate its response to the global coronavirus outbreak.

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Coronavirus: Live Coverage and Updates

The World Health Organization said the virus, found in at least 56 countries so far, poses a “very high” global risk. But the White House accused the media of sowing fear to hurt President Trump.

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Joe Biden Needs a Win in South Carolina. Will He Get It?

Politics still move at a different pace there, and it’s a place where loyalty can outweigh ideology.

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Who Will Care For Society’s Forgotten?

Housecall Providers, an organization in Portland, Ore., provides end-of-life care for the city’s most vulnerable residents.

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We Don’t Really Know How Many People Have Coronavirus

In an era when we get flash-flood warnings on phones, why is data on the new coronavirus so limited?

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Why Bernie Scares Me

Sanders seems mostly incapable of admitting past errors of judgment.

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'The Unauthorized History of Socialism': Lenin's 'Red Terror' sweeps Soviet Russia

In October 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov became the ruler of Russia. The world would know him by his alias: Lenin.

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‘Modern Family’ star Jesse Tyler Ferguson dishes on David Beckham hot tub scene: It was ‘really intense’

Hot tub time machine, I think not!

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Trump holds rally in North Charleston on eve of Dems' South Carolina primary

President Trump took the stage to rally supporters in North Charleston on Friday evening and accused his Democratic critics of "politicizing" the coronavirus virus, a day before Democrats head to the polls in South Carolina to vote for their nominee to face him in November.

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Geraldo Rivera blasts 'scumbag' critics for 'exacerbating' coronavirus fear

Geraldo Rivera slammed Democrats and members of the media for using the coronavirus outbreak to promote "fear" and hurt President Trump, calling those people "scumbags."

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Democracy 2020 Digest: Sanders heavy on electability, light on revolution, on eve of SC primary

Sen. Bernie Sanders is touting his electability – and apparently cutting back on his campaign trail use of the word ‘revolution.’ The populist senator from Vermont – who’s current front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination - touted his electability in his last rally in South Carolina ahead of Saturday’s primary.

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Map: Confirmed coronavirus cases, worldwide

More than 81,000 people have been sickened by a coronavirus, mostly in China. This map is updated daily.

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The Sinister Sanders Child-Care Plan

Bernie Sanders announced a “universal child care” proposal at the end of his wide-ranging 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper. The plan would guarantee “every child in America free full-day, full-week, high-quality child care from infancy through age three,” and the campaign estimates that it would cost taxpayers 1.5 trillion dollars over ten years. But aside from being prohibitively expensive and distressingly vague, the plan looks an awful lot like social engineering.Start with the price tag. After failing to explain how he would pay for his expansive agenda — “I can't rattle off to you every nickel and every dime,” Sanders told Anderson Cooper in a disastrous moment of candor — the Sanders campaign released a partial list of pay-fors the day after the interview, laying out the cost of the senator’s major proposals alongside the tax hikes a Sanders administration would pursue to finance its domestic agenda. The campaign pegged the child-care proposal at a $150 billion annual price tag, more expensive than current federal outlays on unemployment insurance and the SNAP program combined.Add the child-care initiative to the bevy of programs Sanders has already promised to enact as president, and the fiscal feasibility of a child-care proposal grows more uncertain.The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released their analysis of Sanders’s universal child-care plan yesterday, and raised concerns that the Sanders campaign was overestimating federal receipts from its proposed “tax on extreme wealth”:> Based on the work of economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the Sanders campaign estimates this wealth tax would raise $4.35 trillion. This would be enough to finance Senator Sanders's $1.5 trillion universal child care and pre-K plan, his $2.5 trillion housing plan, and $350 billion of his Medicare for All plan (note that our analysis previously assumed he would dedicate $800 billion, not $350 billion, to Medicare for All).> > In our assessment, however, Senators Sanders’s wealth tax is likely to raise significantly less than advertised due to high levels of tax avoidance and the erosion of taxable wealth over time. We believe the wealth tax is likely to raise roughly $3.3 trillion. Assuming the proceeds are distributed evenly, that would leave the universal child care and pre-K plan nearly $400 billion short.As a point of reference, that $400 billion shortfall is larger than the sum total currently allotted to all federal welfare programs combined.While Sanders’s innumeracy was perhaps to be expected, the senator’s defense of the child-care plan on the merits was surprising. For a candidate with well-documented disdain for corporate America, it was strange to see how much of Sanders’s child-care proposal was concerned with the “career outcomes” of “mothers” who — heaven forfend — make “career sacrifices in order to care for their children.” The Sanders campaign presents female labor participation growth as one of the central selling points for its child-care scheme: “Mothers,” the campaign proclaims, “are 40 percent more likely than fathers to report a negative impact on their career outcomes due to child care considerations,” making the institution of a government-funded child-care scheme a “moral responsibility.” The campaign presents the welfare of the children whose stay-at-home parents enter the workforce as an ancillary concern.The Sanders campaign hardly seemed to consider — or, worse, seemed to have considered and proceeded to ignore — the possibility that those mothers making “career sacrifices” might want to raise their own children. As a 2015 Gallup poll found, 56 percent of mothers with children under the age of 18 said they would rather remain at home than enter the workforce, if given the choice. Instead, the socialist appears eager to incentivize more mothers to join the workforce, whereupon they will be presumably “exploited” by the “greedy” corporations the senator has spent a lifetime deriding.Most alarming is the power the senator’s plan vests in the federal government to insert itself into the child-rearing process. Sanders proposes a one-size-fits-all, government-funded child-care model, with no provision for those parents who wish to remain at home. If the Sanders campaign were simply concerned about the costs associated with raising children — both in the home and at a day-care center — it could have proposed a subsidy that also conferred benefits to stay-at-home parents or to relatives providing child care. But the social-engineering component of the plan is unmistakable, as Sanders would essentially create a scheme to augment the “career outcomes” of mothers who might otherwise raise their children at home, thereby boosting enrollment in government-funded child-care centers. Of course, all of those child-care centers will be subject to “quality standards” concocted in Washington.The implications of Sanders’s child-care agenda are clear enough. Right in the heart of the proposal, the Sanders campaign acknowledges that “ages 0 through 4 are the most important years of human life intellectually and emotionally.” Parents ought to be the ones to impart their values to their children in such a formative window, not a Sanders-administration functionary.

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California bracing for spread of coronavirus

California said Thursday it was monitoring some 8,400 people for the new coronavirus, after officials confirmed a woman had contracted the disease without traveling to outbreak-hit regions. Governor Gavin Newsom said travelers arriving from affected areas were being monitored and sought to reassure the public that the risk of contracting the virus remains low.

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Pence tries to project calm as virus response coordinator

Vice President Mike Pence sought to project calm Thursday in his new role as chief coordinator of the government's response to the coronavirus as the Trump administration rushed to contain mounting public concerns and some of the worst stock market declines in more than a decade. Pence convened his first meeting of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force one day after the president made him the government's point-person for the epidemic.

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The 6 largest coronavirus outbreaks outside of China

More new coronavirus cases were reported outside of China than inside the country on Wednesday — the first time since global health officials began tracking the virus.

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Police identify victims, shooter in Milwaukee brewery shooting rampage

Police in Milwaukee on Thursday identified the five brewery employees shot and killed by a co-worker who later took his own life in the latest spasm of gun violence plaguing U.S. workplaces and schools. The motive for the carnage was unclear a day after the shooting at the landmark Molson Coors Beverage Co complex shook Wisconsin's largest city. "Reasons for this are still under investigation," Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales said.

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Turkey loses 33 soldiers in attack, Russia deploys warships to Syria coast

Turkish President Recep Erdogan is looking West for support, and at his country's request NATO will be holding a meeting on the situation.

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Ex-Phoenix area sheriff declares victory despite court loss

Former Phoenix-area Sheriff Joe Arpaio lost a bid to erase his criminal conviction for disobeying a 2011 court order, but claimed victory Thursday after an appeal's court said the verdict no longer has any legal consequence because of President Donald Trump's pardon. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals explained Arpaio was pardoned before he could be sentenced and that the final judgment in the case ended up dismissing the contempt charge. “They can’t use that conviction against me in a court of law,” Arpaio said.

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Billionaire Steyer shakes up primary with slavery reparations plan

For centuries, South Carolina's Charleston was the largest port of entry for the transatlantic slave trade. Now, a billionaire activist named Tom Steyer is shaking up the state's Democratic primary by advocating slavery reparations for African Americans. A California financier turned philanthropist and environmental campaigner, Steyer has poured tens of millions of dollars into the state ahead of Saturday's vote -- with a single-minded focus on the black voters who make up 60 percent of its Democratic electorate.