President Trump addressed the nation from the White House briefing room on Wednesday evening in an effort to calm anxieties about the rapid proliferation of coronavirus. In a seeming acknowledgement that the White House response has lacked clarity and cohesion, Trump announced he was putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the effort to stem the spread of the virus in the U.S. โI don't view Mike as a czar,โ Trump said, though he did not explain what, exactly, Pence's duties would be. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar had previously been in charge of the coronavirus response.
As the novel coronavirus continues to spread beyond China, the U.S. military announced its first confirmed case and commanders across the globe braced for the worst. Shortly afterward, USFK raised its risk level to โhighโ and restricted U.S. military personnel from attending โnon-essentialโ gatherings at restaurants, bars, clubs and theaters away from their installations. South Korea, where 28,500 U.S. troops are based, had 977 confirmed cases of the virus by Tuesday, with 10 deaths, according to the World Health Organization, making it the second-hardest-hit country after China, where the virus originated.
The body of a Mennonite woman who disappeared from her New Mexico home at the end of January was found last week in Arizona, more than 250 miles away, and authorities said Tuesday they believe she was kidnapped and murdered. Sasha Marie Krause, 27, was last seen leaving her Crouch Mesa home at 8 p.m. on Jan. 18, according to the San Juan County Sheriff's Office in New Mexico. Deputies responded to Lamp & Light Publishers, a Mennonite bookstore across the street from Farmington Mennonite Church, at 3 a.m. on Jan. 19, at which point Krause was reported missing.
This Sunday former Vice President and current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden have scheduled an exclusive interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace. This will be Biden's first interview with Wallace since 2007. It comes one day after the make-or-break South Carolina primary, and two days before Super Tuesday which will see 15 simultaneous primaries take place across the nation.
President Andrรฉs Manuel Lรณpez Obrador suggested Wednesday without offering evidence that most of those who die in Mexico's cartel- and gang-fueled firefights are high on drugs or intoxicated, prompting criticism and questions about whether the claim was accurate. Speaking to journalists in his morning news conference, Lรณpez Obrador said rising drug consumption rates must be reversed if the country is to guarantee peace and security after years of rising, record-setting homicide statistics. โJust so you have the number, 60% of those who lose their life each day, 60% of those killed in clashes, it is shown that they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but primarily drugs,โ the president continued.
Iran's deputy health minister was drenched in sweat at the press conference on Monday where he vehemently denied Tehran was covering up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak. The irony of Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi's case would be funny almost, were Iran's conspicuous bungling of the coronavirus threat not a menace to the whole region and, indeed, to the world. As The Daily Beast's partner publication, IranWire, revealed in an exclusive report Thursday, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has tried to address the epidemic by telling doctors to shut up about it, much as Chinese authorities in Wuhan did, disastrously, when the disease was just starting to spread last December.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) again apologized Wednesday for previously incorrectly claiming tribal heritage and releasing DNA results that claimed to reveal she had Native American ancestry. The most recent apology was in response to a letter from several members of the Cherokee Nation, as well as members of other tribes standing in solidarity, calling on her to go beyond acknowledging her mistakes and do her part to dispel beliefs spread by white people claiming Native heritage. In a response letter, Warren affirmed she understood all three of those points, and thanked the Cherokee Nation for holding her "accountable," while also highlighting actions she has taken as a lawmaker as well as provisions she has included in her presidential campaign plans with tribal interests in mind.
Michael Bloomberg is reportedly trying to convince entreprenuer and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang to join his campaign as his running mate. According to individuals with knowledge of the discussion, aides working with the former New York City mayor reportedly reached out to Mr Yang to discuss how the businessmen could join forces in Mr Bloomberg's quest for the Democratic nomination. The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr Yang hasn't committed to join forces.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday formally dismissed a case in which Lee Boyd Malvo, who was 17 when he took part in the deadly 2002 "D.C. Sniper" shooting spree in the Washington area, was challenging his life without parole sentence.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who told his listeners that alarmism about the coronavirus was a plot to bring down President Trump, has attacked the CDC official who warned Americans that the virus will inevitably spread in the U.S. โDr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control โ which today warned it could be bad, it might be bad, don't go to school and don't go to work, stay at home and teleconference โ is the sister of the former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein,โ Limbaugh said on Tuesday's program. Rosenstein, who resigned from the Justice Department last May, oversaw the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller that President Trump sought to stop.
Islamist militant groups in Nigeria have begun targeting Christians in an attempt to provoke a religious war, the information minister said on Thursday. Islamist insurgents in Nigeria have killed around 35,000 people and displaced at least two million in the past decade, driven first by Boko Haram and more recently by its offshoot, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Information Minister Lai Mohammed said jihadist groups in the northeast of the country have now adopted a "deliberate policy of attacking Christians."
An Oklahoma man convicted of kidnapping his stepdaughter as a child and holding her in captivity for nearly 20 years has been sentenced to life in prison, prosecutors said Tuesday. Henri Michelle Piette was found guilty in June by a federal jury of kidnapping and traveling with intent to engage in a sexual act with a juvenile following a seven-day trial that detailed the horrific conditions Rosalynn McGinnis endured. Piette repeatedly raped and abused her and fathered her nine children during the nearly two-decade ordeal, which began when Piette kidnapped her in 1997 when she was 12 years old.
The Japanese military is considering developing a hypersonic anti-ship missile with a special warhead for penetrating the decks of Chinese aircraft carriers. Japan's defense ministry is developing what it calls a โhypervelocity gliding projectile," or HVGP, for deployment on island bases starting in 2026. In U.S. parlance, a guided missile traveling faster than five times the speed of sound is a โhypersonicโ weapon.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday signaled to Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders that he would need an outright majority of delegates, not just a plurality, to win the party's presidential nomination. Washington's top Democrat declined to say whether she would support the candidacy of Sanders -- flagbearer for the left-wing -- if he arrived at the party convention in July with the most delegates among the candidates, but still short of a majority. Sanders is battling moderate rivals including former vice president Joe Biden and rising challenger Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York, to see who faces President Donald Trump in November's election.
Right now in Iran we are facing a coronavirus epidemic,โ said a senior medical doctor at the Masih Daneshvari hospital in Tehran, the country's top pulmonary public hospital and the main facility overseeing coronavirus patients. Public officials have not confirmed how the disease arrived in Iran, but it appears to be the locus for the regional outbreak. So far, Afghanistan, Georgia, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Oman reported their first cases of coronavirus, all linked to passengers traveling from Iran.
If you've ever engaged in a discussion about evaluated 17 climate model projections published between 1970 and 2007, with forecasts ending on or before 2017. The researchers found 14 of the 17 model projections were consistent with observed real-world surface temperatures, when they factored in the actual rise in greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Gavin Schmitt, the head of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, posted an even more recent assessment of the state-of-the-art collection of climate models run in the early 2000s called CMIP3.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg may be looking for a bump from the Yang Gang. The Bloomberg campaign has been seeking an endorsement from entrepreneur and former 2020 candidate Andrew Yang and even floated him as a potential running made, The Wall Street Journal reports. "Aides to the former New York City mayor reached out to discuss ways the two entrepreneurs-turned-politicians could work together as Mr. Bloomberg seeks the Democratic nomination," the Journal writes, although Yang reportedly "didn't commit to join forces."
The list of countries hit by the coronavirus grows. Mecca suspends entry for pilgrims. Several countries close their schools, stock exchanges plunge.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday refused to expunge the criminal contempt finding made against Arpaio for defying a judge's orders related to his crackdown on undocumented immigrants. A month after the verdict, he became the first person to be pardoned by President Donald Trump. The three appellate judges, one who was appointed by Trump and two by George W. Bush, were unanimous that Arpaio's guilty verdict had no legal consequence because technically he was never convicted.
Joe Biden says he isn't worried about the prospect of President Trump refusing to leave his post if he's defeated in November.
A New Jersey woman faces murder charges after allegedly enlisting her son and his friend to brutally kill her daughter and husband 25 years ago by promising them a cut of his life-insurance policy. Dolores Morgan, 66, and her 47-year-old son, Ted Connors, were indicted by a grand jury Wednesday evening on seven counts, including murder and conspiracy, in relation to the 1994 stabbing death of Ana Mejia and the fatal shooting of Nicholas Connors in May 1995, the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office told The Daily Beast. Prosecutors allege that while Connors murdered his father and sister with his best friend, Jose Carrero, Morgan was the true mastermind behind the scheme.
Hundreds of tourists at a plush hotel in Tenerife have been put on lockdown after a doctor visiting from Italy's Lombardy region tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Guests at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace have described a chaotic response to the outbreak and have complained about the conflicting advice given by authorities and hotel staff. While some have chosen to remain in their rooms, others are wandering around hotel grounds and have been seen relaxing by the pool in face masks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday Bernie Sanders was wrong to call him a racist during a debate among contenders for the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination, but shied away from attacking the senator in return. "I am not intervening in the U.S. election," Netanyahu replied when asked on Israeli Army Radio about what an interviewer termed Sanders' personal attack on him at Tuesday's event in Charleston, South Carolina. Sanders, who has been critical of the right-wing leader's policy toward Palestinians, described Netanyahu as "a reactionary racist who is now running" Israel.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday revealed there was a secret plan to use a double to make public appearances for him, while insisting he vetoed it -- and that he is the real Putin. Putin's comments showed that a conspiracy theory widespread on the internet that the Russian strongman has been impersonated over the years or even replaced by a lookalike is not entirely without basis. TASS state news agency showed Putin a list of popular Russian-language Internet searches including "Putin double proof".
Iran has the highest reported number of deaths from the coronavirus outside China, raising questions about how the government is handling the public health crisis and whether the often secretive regime has been fully transparent about the extent of the outbreak. Iran's health ministry spokesman said on Thursday that 26 Iranians have died out of a total of 245 positive cases. Apart from China, where it was first detected in December, Iran has recorded the most deaths from the new form of coronavirus.