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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(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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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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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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Colombia rejected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's proposal that the two countries resume diplomatic relations on Thursday, amid a dispute over a fugitive former Colombian congresswoman who was captured in Venezuela. Maduro abruptly cut diplomatic relations with neighboring Colombia last February after Colombian President Ivan Duque helped Venezuelan opposition politicians deliver humanitarian aid to their crisis-stricken country.
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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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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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Fotis Dulos, 52, had been hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning since Tuesday, when he was found unresponsive inside a vehicle in the garage of his house in Farmington, Connecticut. “To those who contend that Mr. Dulos' death reflects a consciousness of guilt, we say no," lawyer Norm Pattis said. Dulos, a luxury home builder originally from Greece, was accused of killing Jennifer Dulos, who has not been seen since she dropped their five children off at school in New Canaan in May. Her body has not been found despite extensive searches.
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Hungary will begin an ambitious prison-building program in an attempt to stem a tide of costly lawsuits by inmates complaining of overcrowding and inhumane conditions, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday. Orban accused "business-savvy lawyers" of exploiting the conditions to launch 12,000 lawsuits against the Hungarian state for breaking EU prison standards, leading to penalties of 10 billion forints ($33 million) in total. Orban, who has often come under fire from the European Union and rights groups over his perceived erosion of the rule of law since he took power in 2010, announced plans for more prisons to reduce the prison overcrowding and disarm "malignant lawyers".
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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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A 12-year-old girl died this week in southern Egypt after her parents brought her to a doctor who performed female genital mutilation, a criminal practice that remains widespread in the region, according to a judicial statement. The girl's death in the province of Assiut prompted Egypt's public prosecutor to order the arrests of her parents and the physician who preformed the procedure, also known as female circumcision, said the statement released late Thursday by the prosecutor's office. Since the mid-1990s, Egypt has been battling the centuries-old practice, which is misguidedly believed to control women's sexuality.
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Armed men blocked roads, burned cars and there were reports of shootouts in the city of Uruapan in western Mexico after a senior leader of the Los Viagras cartel was detained, local media and a source from the prosecutor's office said. Luis Felipe, also known as "El Vocho", was captured earlier in the day in the western state of Michoacan, which has long been convulsed by turf wars between drug gangs and where unrest is not uncommon after the detention of senior cartel figures. Michoacan's state security services, without giving names, said on Twitter that three people have been detained.
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The U.S. Navy promoted Chief Petty Officer Tony DeDolph four months after he admitted to choking a Green Beret to death. DeDolph—who will be back in court Thursday for a preliminary hearing—was formally charged in November 2018 with felony murder, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, burglary, hazing, and involuntary manslaughter in the strangulation death of Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar, a Special Forces soldier assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group.Melgar was nearing the end of his deployment when he was killed in the West African nation of Mali in June 2017. He was part of an intelligence operation in Mali supporting counterterrorism efforts against al Qaeda’s local affiliate, known as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.Days after Melgar was strangled, DeDolph, at the time a petty officer first class, was sent back to his base in Virginia Beach under suspicion of murder. Despite that, DeDolph found himself on the promotion list for chief petty officer in August 2017; he was “frocked”—meaning he began wearing the insignia of the higher rank—on Sept. 15, 2017, according to defense officials. He didn’t start drawing chief’s pay until December.Slain Green Beret’s Widow Speaks: ‘I Knew They Were Lying’Three days before DeDolph’s promotion, the medical examiner’s report was signed. It concluded, based on a June 8, 2017, autopsy at Dover Air Force Base, that Melgar’s cause of death was asphyxiation and the manner of death was homicide, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Beast.A defense official familiar with the case said Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as Seal Team 6, didn’t flag DeDolph because he was not formally charged or a person of interest in an ongoing investigation. He was a participant in the investigation but no charges were filed until November 2018.Retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, the former commander of Special Operations Command-Africa, told The Daily Beast this week that he authorized an investigation after he learned of Melgar’s death. Bolduc alerted Army Criminal Investigation Command and told commanders in Mali to preserve evidence. He didn’t understand why DeDolph was promoted when he returned to his unit in Virginia Beach.“It is another failure of leadership,” Bolduc said. “I mean senior leadership. It’s unfortunate. He should have never been promoted. The investigation was started right away. They whisked them out of there as fast as they could.”When asked if he was surprised by the news, Bolduc said no.“I’m disappointed,” he said. “But not surprised. It’s utter bullshit.”Navy prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Garcia declined to comment on the promotion because DeDolph is part of an ongoing investigation.“DeDolph has remained a member of Naval Special Warfare throughout this process,” said Navy Capt. Tamara Lawrence, a spokeswoman for Naval Special Warfare. “It is paramount that the rights of the service member are protected, thus any additional information regarding this case will not be discussed.”Phil Stackhouse, DeDolph's civilian attorney, did not return calls or text messages seeking comment. Melgar’s widow, Michelle, declined to comment on the story.DeDolph’s case is just one of several high-profile incidents that have exposed issues in the SEAL culture. Members of SEAL Team 7 were expelled from Iraq in 2019 after allegations of drinking and sexual assault. Six SEALs tested positive for cocaine last year. Then there’s the case of Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Gallagher, a former member of SEAL Team 7, who faced a court martial for war crimes charges including murder, but was convicted of posing for a picture with a dead body and granted clemency by President Trump in November 2019. Trump Tells Allies He Wants Absolved War Criminals to Campaign for HimSome of the same issues were present in Mali, where there was widespread alcohol use, partying, and prostitutes at the safehouse, according to sources familiar with the investigation. “It was like a frat house,” one source said, when asked to describe what the safe house in Bamako was like. In response to the recent incidents, Rear Adm. Collin Green, head of Naval Special Warfare Command, sent a memo last year to his subordinate units declaring the whole SEAL community has a problem.“Some of our subordinate formations have failed to maintain good order and discipline and as a result and for good reason, our NSW culture is being questioned,” Green wrote in the July 2019 memo. “I don’t know yet if we have a culture problem, I do know that we have a good order and discipline problem that must be addressed immediately.”Gen. Richard Clarke, the head of Special Operations Command, ordered an ethics review last August following several high-profile incidents. He acknowledged in a memo to service members on Tuesday that “unacceptable conduct” had been allowed to occur as a result of “lack of leadership, discipline and accountability.” The 71-page report summing up the ethics review warned of what Clarke described as an emphasis on “force employment and mission accomplishment over the routine activities that ensure leadership, accountability, and discipline.”Chief Petty Officer Adam C. Matthews, who was in Mali doing an assessment of the mission there, testified in August he felt it was his duty to haze Melgar—on DeDolph’s recommendation—to teach him a lesson after Melgar “ditched” the team in Mali’s capital city of Bamako on his way to a party at the French embassy. Investigator of Green Beret’s Murder Had Romantic Relationship With Witness, Lawyer SaysDeDolph, Matthews and two Marine Raiders—Gunnery Sgt. Mario Madera-Rodriguez and Staff Sgt. Kevin Maxwell—spent the rest of the night plotting to choke Melgar into unconsciousness, pull his pants down and videotape the incident and then show it to him later to embarrass him. When Melgar became unresponsive, Matthews and DeDolph tried to resuscitate Melgar with CPR and opened a hole in his throat. The SEALS with Sergeant First Class James Morris, Melgar’s supervisor, then rushed Melgar to a French medical facility, where he was pronounced dead. At the clinic, DeDolph admitted to an embassy official he choked Melgar, according to NBC News and subsequent reports.Maxwell and Matthews have already pleaded guilty in exchange for plea agreements with prosecutors. Matthews, 33, pleaded guilty to hazing and assault charges and attempts to cover up what happened to Melgar. He was sentenced in May 2019 to one year in military prison. Maxwell, 29, was sentenced to four years of confinement after pleading guilty in connection with Melgar’s death in June 2019.DeDolph and Madera-Rodriguez are the last of the four men who carried out the attack to stand trial. Both men are expected to face courts martial this spring. An exact date has not been selected, according to Navy officials.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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The United Kingdom’s Maritime Trade Operations said the fire struck the vessel northwest of Sharjah, an Emirati sheikhdom. Emirati officials said they were working to put out the blaze some 21 miles (34 kilometers) off the coast of Sharjah. The blaze comes amid heightened tensions in the region after the U.S. killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad and Iran fired ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops.
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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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After all that, it all could be over sometime on Friday.Donald Trump appears to be on a metaphorical bullet train to acquittal on charges of abusing the power of the presidency and unjustly stonewalling Congress. And one of his once most unlikely of allies, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is the conductor.
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Donald Trump has raged at his ex-national security adviser John Bolton, saying the Ukraine claims made in his forthcoming new memoir are “nonsense” and declaring he would have started “World War Six” if he had not been removed from office last September as the Republican effort to discredit him continues.A new poll by Quinnipiac University has meanwhile found that 75 per cent of Americans want to hear from Mr Bolton at the president’s Senate impeachment trial as GOP majority leader Mitch McConnell is forced to admit he does not currently have the votes to stop Democrats calling new witnesses to speak out.
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Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.V.) on Wednesday said he believes Hunter Biden may be a pertinent witness in the Senate impeachment trial."I think so, I really do," Manching said when asked on MSNBC's Morning Joe whether he thought the former vice president's son was a "relevant" witness. "I don't have a problem there because this is why we are where we are.""I think that he could clear himself from what I know and what I've heard," Manchin went on, "but being afraid to put anybody that might have pertinent information [on the witness stand] is wrong, whether you're Democrat or Republican."> .@WillieGeist asks @Sen_JoeManchin if Hunter Biden is a 'relevant witness.' Sen. Manchin responds: "I think so; I really do." pic.twitter.com/ZESiUMWTWc> > -- Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) January 29, 2020The Senate is currently entering the two-day question and answer phase of impeachment, after which it will vote on whether to subpoena witnesses and documents to be used as evidence at the trial. Democrats would like to summon former White House national security adviser John Bolton to testify, however Republicans may then insist on calling Hunter Biden as well as the whistleblower whose complaint set off the impeachment process.Hunter Biden was the head of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings from 2014 through early 2019. In 2016, at the behest of U.S. and European Union officials, then-vice president Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire top prosecutor Victor Shokin over suspicions of corruption. Shokin had in the past led an investigation into Burisma for corruption within the company.Manchin, whose state of West Virginia contains a strong base of support for Trump, is one of three Senate Democrats who have remained publicly undecided on whether to acquit or convict the President."I know it’s hard to believe that. But I really am [undecided]. But I have not made a final decision. Every day, I hear something, I think ‘this is compelling, that’s compelling,'" the Senator said on Tuesday. "Everyone’s struggling a little bit."
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Lev Parnas’ attorney Joseph Bondy is set to attend the Senate impeachment trial tomorrow during the first day of the question-answer period. His co-counsel Stephanie Schuman is also expected to appear, The Daily Beast has learned.“Like many other New York constituents, Mr. Bondy reached out and asked for gallery tickets, and we said yes,” said Justin Goodman, a spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Senate Minority Leader.Bondy told The Daily Beast Tuesday that his client was also trying to attend tomorrow’s proceedings in the Senate trial but would be unlikely to be able to enter the chamber because he wears an ankle monitor. Senate rules bar individuals from bringing any electronics into the chamber during the trial. Tuesday evening, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken indeed modified Parnas' pretrial release to allow him to travel to Washington, but denied the removal of his monitor.Lev Parnas Dishes on Kushner, Maduro, and SorosParnas, a Florida businessman, worked with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate a company linked to former Vice President Joe Biden. He was charged with election-related crimes in October and has pleaded not guilty. Parnas’ work with Giuliani is a core part of Democrats’ arguments to remove the president for abuse of power.Parnas has provided materials, including phone records, to House investigators over the last several weeks. Bondy has publicly lobbied for lawmakers to bring his client in for questioning on his interactions with Giuliani, President Donald Trump, and others caught up in the U.S.-Ukraine scandal. Bondy’s appearance tomorrow comes as senators debate whether to allow former National Security Adviser John Bolton into the chamber for questioning or whether to allow lawmakers to view his manuscript in a classified setting.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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(Bloomberg) -- The coronavirus has been in the news for only a few weeks, but Elizabeth Warren already has a plan to fight it.With Hong Kong announcing restrictions on travel from mainland China as part of an effort to contain the SARS-like virus that has claimed more than 100 lives, Warren released a proposal Tuesday morning aimed at containing and treating infectious diseases.“Diseases like coronavirus remind us why we need robust international institutions, strong investments in public health, and a government that is prepared to jump into action at a moment’s notice,” she wrote in a Medium post announcing the plan.Warren criticized President Donald Trump’s response to the outbreak, calling it “a mess.” and assailed the administration’s proposed funding cuts for feeral health agencies.She said her administration would prioritize developing a universal flu vaccine and replenish funding for the Public Health Emergency Fund, with the goal of speeding outbreak response. She proposed restoring an Obama-era White House position for health security that Trump eliminated in 2018. Warren also cited outbreaks as a reason to move towards Medicare For All, a policy proposal that she has espoused, saying it would give infected people access necessary care.This post is part of Campaign Update, our live coverage from the 2020 campaign trail.To contact the author of this story: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Washington at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Kathleen HunterFor 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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