The swarm appears to be practicing a search for ... something.
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At a Hasidic synagogue in Brooklyn, police, state troopers and civilian volunteers stand guard as Orthodox Jews mark the end of Hanukkah under heightened security following a spate of attacks. New York, home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel, had long been a place where Jews felt safe.
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The wife of an abducted Sri Lankan journalist is accusing the military of trying to derail a court case in which nine soldiers have been charged with her husband's abduction and enforced disappearance nearly 10 years ago. Prageeth went missing in 2010 during the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the brother of current President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Prageeth, an analyst and cartoonist, wrote against alleged corruption, nepotism and Rajapaksa’s conduct during a military campaign against ethnic Tamil rebels in ending Sri Lanka's long civil war.
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Wildfires burning across Australia's two most populous states Tuesday trapped residents of a seaside town in apocalyptic conditions and killed at least two people while more property along the country's east coast fell victim to a devastating fire season. About 4,000 residents in the southeastern town of Mallacoota in Victoria state fled toward the water Tuesday morning as winds pushed an emergency-level wildfire toward their homes.
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Worshippers in the US state of Texas shot dead a gunman who opened fire during a livestreamed Sunday service, ending an attack that killed two parishioners, authorities said. The latest US shooting at a house of worship took place in the suburban Fort Worth community of White Settlement on Sunday morning when the gunman entered West Freeway Church of Christ, officials said. "A couple of members of the church returned fire, striking the suspect who died at the scene," White Settlement Police Chief J.P. Bevering told reporters.
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Anger over U.S. airstrikes Sunday against Iran-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah boiled over in Baghdad on Tuesday as militia supporters broke into the U.S. Embassy complex and set fire to a reception area, The Associated Press reports. Iraqi officials say the U.S. ambassador and other staff evacuated the embassy as militia supporters started gathering outside, but the security forces who remained fired tear gas at the dozens of protesters who breached a side gate. AP reporters at the scene also heard sounds of gunfire and saw U.S. troops on the embassy roof with guns pointed at the attackers.Leaders of several Iran-backed militias were in the crowd at the embassy shouting "Down, Down U.S.A." and "Death to America." Sunday's airstrikes killed 25 Kataib Hezbollah militants, a response, U.S. officials said, to an attack Friday that left one U.S. contractor dead. The attack on the U.S. Embassy followed funerals for the militants in a Baghdad neighborhood. Before breaking down the side gate, protesters smashed security cameras, torched three empty trailers used by security guards, and spray-painted "Closed in the name of the people" on the embassy gates.More stories from theweek.com The Obama legacy is not what many liberals think Trump's scandals will haunt America for years The first decade in history
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After a leader in the Trump administration came under fire for seemingly trying to turn the latest violent anti-Semitic attack in New York into an anti-immigrant parable, the target of his smear responded Tuesday, calling his comments “a disgrace.”Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, claimed in a Monday morning tweet that 38-year-old Grafton Thomas, a U.S. citizen who allegedly stabbed five people at a Hanukkah party over the weekend, was the “son of an illegal alien who got amnesty under the 1986 amnesty law for illegal immigrants.” “Apparently, American values did not take hold among this entire family, at least this one violent, and apparently bigoted, son,” Cuccinelli wrote.Thomas’ attorney, Michael Sussman, said Tuesday that Cuccinelli’s remarks “are a disgrace and akin to blaming the parents of a mentally ill child for conceiving him or her” and that “such comments have no place in a rational debate about national immigration policy, a debate which is long overdue and long delayed by those currently holding executive office in our nation.“My client’s parents migrated to the United States and were granted legal status in 1986,” said Sussman. “My client was born in the United States and is an American citizen. His immigration status appears totally unrelated to his mental illness and the circumstances which caused the events of last Saturday evening.” Cuccinelli has pushed for aggressive anti-immigrant policies since his time as a state lawmaker in Virginia. For the Trump White House, he has argued against birthright U.S. citizenship for children of undocumented parents and suggested the words on the Statue of Liberty were only aimed at European immigrants.After several people called out Cuccinelli’s tweet and its apparent condemnation of a Reagan-era bipartisan immigration law, the post was either deleted or otherwise removed from his Twitter page.Further on the right, white supremacists celebrated Thomas’ race on 4chan and Telegram, where they discussed pushing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that they hoped would inspire violence against Jews by black Americans, whom they described with racist slurs.Thomas, who is black, allegedly burst into the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg in the New York suburb of Monsey on Saturday night around 10 p.m., as dozens of guests were celebrating Hanukkah.He allegedly stabbed and wounded five people with a machete, and he was charged with five counts of attempted murder and one count of first-degree burglary. All of the victims survived, but one is said to remain in critical condition with a skull fracture.Federal prosecutors on Monday also filed federal hate crime charges against Thomas and said in court documents that he had expressed anti-Semitic sentiments in hand-written journals.The patrol officers who arrested Thomas discovered him “covered with blood,” The New York Times reported. Thomas pleaded not guilty to all charges on Sunday morning at his arraignment in Ramapo, New York.Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has called the attack a “blatant act of domestic terrorism that sought to inflict violence, incite hate and generate fear” and ordered the State Police hate-crimes task force to investigate.Hanukkah Stabbing Suspect Caught With Bloody Machete in His CarThomas’ family told CNN he had no history of anti-Semitism, violent behavior, or prior convictions. They said he is “not a member of any hate groups” and have reportedly asked Sussman to request a mental-health evaluation for Thomas, who has “a long history of mental illness and hospitalizations” and “was raised in a home which embraced and respected all religions and races.”United Methodist Church Pastor Wendy Paige said that she has known Thomas for 10 years and that he is “not a violent person.”“Grafton is not a terrorist, he is a man who has mental illness in America, and the systems that be have not served him well,” Paige told the New York Post. “I have been his pastor for a long time and I have seen him, he is not a violent person, he is a confused person.”“We apologize to the families for him,” said Paige. “We apologize because we know this was not him, this was an action out of mental illness, please understand… Please let’s work on our systems for mental illness.”After a deadly anti-Semitic shooting at a kosher market in Jersey City this month and an “alarming” surge in anti-Semitic violence in the New York area, police have said they stepped up patrols in at least three Brooklyn neighborhoods.—Staff writer Kelly Weill contributed to this report.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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A fierce winter storm that created blizzard conditions in parts of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota shut down interstates, led to hundreds of vehicle crashes and brought a metropolitan area of more than 200,000 people to a standstill on Monday morning. Residents in the Fargo and Moorhead, Minnesota area who are used to snowstorms were told to stay home after a foot of heavy, wet snow made that fell on top of a sheet of ice made travel difficult and stoked early fears about spring flooding. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning in northeastern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where periods of heavy snow and gusty winds were expected to create difficult travel conditions.
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(Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren assailed the clout in Washington of billionaires and large corporations that have lined up to fight her calls for a wealth tax and Medicare for All.“Many corporate executives and career politicians and billionaires on both sides of the aisle want to keep their influence and their wealth,” Warren, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, said in a speech in Boston Tuesday. “And they are already deep in the fight to do so.”Warren said that industry interests were lining up to stifle many of the more ambitious initiatives of her campaign, including the swift creation of a government-run health-care system that would cover all Americans and eliminate private insurance -- a proposal also offered by her rival for the party’s nomination, Bernie Sanders.“Americans overwhelmingly believe that health care is a basic human right,” Warren said. “But the private health insurance industry is dumping millions of dollars in false TV ads to scare people away from any change.”Medicare for All remains popular with the Democratic base, yet some have worried that it could hurt Democrats in the general election against President Donald Trump. Union members and millions of other Americans who have health insurance are reluctant to give it up.Biden Holds Narrow Edge Over Trump in Florida Poll (6 a.m.)Joe Biden holds a narrow edge over Donald Trump in a head-to-head match-up in Florida, the only leading Democratic candidate currently presenting serious competition to the president in the crucial 2020 swing state, according to a poll released Tuesday.The former vice president is backed by 47% of Florida voters, while 45% say they support Trump, according to the poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy conducted Dec. 11-16. The result is well within the survey’s 4 percentage point margin of error, and 8% of registered voters remain undecided.By comparison, Trump leads Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren 51% to 42%, and has a five-point advantage over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, 49% to 44%. Against South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Trump leads 48% to 45%. Trump won Florida’s 29 electoral 2016 by just more than 1 percentage point.A Mason-Dixon poll of Virginia registered voters showed Biden with a 49% to 45% lead over Trump. But as in Florida, Trump leads Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg in the state, which has been trending toward Democrats over the last several elections. -- Joe SobczykCOMING UP:Warren will deliver a New Year’s Eve address from Boston’s historic Old South Meeting House on fighting corruption.Five Democratic candidates -- Warren, Sanders, Biden, Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have qualified for the next debate, on Jan. 14, in Iowa.Trump is scheduled to hold a campaign rally in Milwaukee on the same night as the debate.(Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)\--With assistance from Joe Sobczyk.To contact the reporter on this story: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Washington at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Michael Shepard, Elizabeth WassermanFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) claimed on Sunday’s broadcast of State of the Union that there are no “substantive rules” when it comes to holding an impeachment trial and that the Constitution doesn’t provide much guidance to the Senate.CNN anchor Jake Tapper noted that Kennedy had previously said his objective in President Donald Trump’s impeachment is to be fair to both sides. He asked the lawmaker about Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) saying she was “disturbed” that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would coordinate with the White House on impeachment.“Were you also bothered when Majority Leader McConnell said there would be no daylight between him and the White House?” Tapper asked.“I think Senator McConnell is entitled to his opinion and his approach. So is Senator Murkowski,” Kennedy stated, adding that if you look at specific case law on impeachment, “the rule is there is no substantive rules.”“It is not a criminal trial,” he continued. “The Senate is not really a jury. It is both jury and judge. The chief justice is not the judge, he’s the presiding officer. There are no standards of proof. There are no rules of evidence.”The guidelines provided by Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution say that the Senate has the “sole Power to try all Impeachments,” the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will preside over the trial, and a president will only be removed from office if two-thirds of the Senate convicts.Kennedy went on to say that every member of the Senate is entitled to approach impeachment any way they want until a majority of the chamber votes on passing new rules, reiterating that he wants it “to be fair to both sides.”“I thought that the House proceedings were unnecessarily unfair and when the American people walk away from the Senate trial, if we ever have one, I don’t want them saying: ‘Well, we were just run over by the same truck twice. It was unfair in the house and it was unfair in the Senate,’” the Louisiana senator said. “I want people to think that it was a level playing field.”Asked whether his idea of fairness would be for both House impeachment managers and the president’s team to call the witnesses they deem worthy, Kennedy said they first need to decide whether Senate will hear evidence during the trial.“But, look, there are no rules here,” he asserted. “For example, what is an impeachable offense? I think the precedent shows that not all impeachable offenses are crimes. But it also shows that not all crimes are impeachable offenses.”Kennedy, meanwhile, concluded by saying it would be proper for Trump to continue blocking key White House witnesses from testifying if called by Congress.“I fully expect the president to do two things,” he said. “Claim executive privilege, which is his right. And number two, demand his own list of witnesses.”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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Landmark law, the ‘most comprehensive’ in the US, gives Californians an arsenal of tools to protect their data online Last year, California passed a landmark privacy law that gives consumers more control over their data. The legislation gives residents unprecedented rights to control what information companies collect on them and how it is used.The California Consumer Privacy Act will go into action 1 January 2020, giving residents of the state a whole new arsenal of tools to protect their data and personal information online – and saddling businesses with a lot more responsibility.Here is everything you need to know about California’s “groundbreaking” new privacy law. What is the law?The California Consumer Privacy Act, passed in 2018, is the “most comprehensive” privacy legislation to be enacted in the United States to date, according to the American Bar Association.Under the new regulations, California residents will be able to demand companies to disclose what information is collected on them and request a copy of that information.Companies will be forced to delete consumers’ data upon request and they’ll be prohibited from selling information if the customer instructs them to via a mandatory “do not sell” link on the company’s website.Consumers will also have the right to “receive equal service and price whether or not they exercise their privacy rights” or in other words, companies won’t be able to treat a user differently because they have requested their data. When does it go into effect?The law is effective on 1 January – meaning consumers can submit requests for their data starting on that date. The California attorney general’s office will not take any enforcement action against companies that do not comply until 1 July 2020. What businesses does it affect?Businesses will be required to comply with the new regulations if they have an annual gross revenue in excess of $25m, derive 50% or more of their annual revenue from selling consumers’ personal information, or annually buy, receive, sell, or share the personal information of more than 50,000 consumers, households, or devices for commercial purposes.That means at least 500,000 businesses will be required to comply with the new law, according to the not-for-profit the International Association of Privacy. Who else does it affect?Consumers in California will be most directly affected by the new law. However, even people who not live in California may see ripple effects, said Peter Yared, the founder and chief executive officer of data management company InCountry.“There are similar laws manifesting all over the world so increasingly companies are set up to receive and process these kinds of requests for data,” he said. I live in California – how can I get my own data?Consumers can receive a copy of their data by sending “a verifiable consumer request” to a business. The company is then required to comply with the request within 45 days of receipt. In some cases, companies can extend this time period for a maximum of 90 days total.Consumers may only make a request for information twice a year, and only for a 12-month look-back period. What happens if a company doesn’t give me my data?Companies may face fines of $2,500 to $7,500 per violation of the new law, if the violation is deemed intentional. However, the CCPA also grants businesses a 30-day period to address a violation after receipt of a consumer’s request. The law is enforced by the California attorney general. How does the CCPA compare to other privacy laws?The California Consumer Privacy Act has often been called “GDPR-lite”, bearing resemblance to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, which went into effect in May 2018.GDPR’s scope is broader, affecting all businesses that handle user data, whereas the CCPA applies only to businesses with a gross revenue over $25m, more than 50,000 customers, or whose revenue is 50% or more based on user data.The CCPA provides more explicit “opt out” options for users who do not want their personal data sold. Under the CCPA, companies must include a “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link in a clear and conspicuous location on their websites. Under GDPR, by comparison, businesses do not necessarily need the individual’s consent to collect and use data.The rules also differ in their approaches to the collection of children’s data. Under GDPR, parents must provide consent for the processing of data of children under the age of 16. The CCPA requires businesses obtain consent from parents of children ages 13 and under, while kids older than 13 can provide their own consent. What’s next?Although the CCPA is the most extensive privacy law yet to be passed in the US, some advocates say it does not go far enough. Before the comment period on the law closed on 6 December, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a not-for-profit organization, and other privacy advocates filed a request to strengthen the regulation.The law as it is written does not do enough to address data collection, said Hayley Tsukayama, an EFF legal advocate, and California has few resources to enforce the law in 2020.“You have the right to go to companies that have your data and ask to have it back, but they don’t have to come to you to ask to have it in the first place”, she said. “This is what we call opt in versus opt out.”Companies that violate the law will also have the “right to cure”, meaning they can change their violating policies after they have been apprehended.“We see this as a get out of jail free card,” Tsukayama said.
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Before signing off for 2019, Hasan Minhaj has turned his eye towards 2020. The host of Netflix’s Patriot Act ended his final episode of the year by sharing some updates from stories he covered earlier in the year, including an interview during which he tried to get Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accept Islam as his “one true faith.” Two weeks later, his brownface scandal erupted. “Little did I know he had actually converted decades ago,” Minhaj joked. The biggest problem of 2019, he went on to argue, is that “we’re exposed to all the news, all the time, which makes us feel like we have to care about everything all the time.” It’s called “compassion fatigue” and Minhaj compared it to feeling like you have “50 tabs open in our mental browsers and we’re about to crash.” “You know who really figured out 2019?” he asked, before adding, “You’re not going to like this.” He was talking about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “We’ve shat on Mitch McConnell all year. ‘He’s a goblin, he’s a skin tag with glasses, he looks like something from a wax museum dumpster.’ He doesn’t give a fuck.” To extend Minhaj’s analogy, McConnell “closed all tabs, except for the Republican Party and locking down the courts.” And he thinks those on the other side of the political divide should do the same.Hasan Minhaj Fires Back at Saudi Arabia for Censoring His Netflix Show ‘Patriot Act’“So here’s what I’m pitching,” he continued. “For 2020, give yourself a break. Just pick a couple things to not care about, for your sanity. I’m not saying shut down your browser. Just close a couple tabs.” For himself, Minhaj has decided to let other people worry about plastic straws, North Korea and brownface. “I know, that’s supposed to be my issue,” he said. “But I’ve got other tabs to focus on. So if someone comes up to me and is like, ‘Did you hear? Joe Biden dressed up as Apu for Halloween!’ I’d be like, ‘Yo, I bet the accent was funny.’” Minhaj acknowledged that it was “weird” to hear this advice from a host—much like his fellow Daily Show alum John Oliver—who “tells you to care about something new every week.” And he promised to keep doing so in 2020, something that was an open question before Patriot Act aired the 32nd episode of its initial 32-episode order this past week. “I’ll see you guys in 2020,” he concluded. “We’ve got a few more tabs to open.” For more, listen to the most recent episodes of The Last Laugh podcast. 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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A masked, machete-wielding man barged into a Hanukkah celebration and stabbed five people at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, on Saturday evening, intensifying fears anti-Semitic violence after a spate of incidents last week. The assailant escaped but the NYPD quickly picked up a suspect. Law-enforcement sources identified him as Grafton Thomas, 37, who has several previous arrests on his record, including one for punching a police horse. He was turned over to the state police, and will face five counts of attempted murder.The terrifying ambush—which took place in Rockland County, a northern suburb that has the highest per capita Jewish population in the U.S.—drew swift condemnation from public officials from Israel to Washington. Gov. Andrew Cuomo called it an “act of domestic terrorism.”According to Ramapo Police Chief Brad Weidel, a man covering his face with a scarf knocked on the door at Rabbi Rottenburg’s shul during the seventh night of Hanukkah just as the rabbi was lighting the candle. The assailant rushed past the man who answered the door, who said he pulled out a machete and began stabbing people, according to several witnesses.He is said to have gone after terrified victims as they ran away and tried to access the adjacent synagogue before fleeing the scene after some of the guests hit him with chairs and a small table.Ramapo Town Police said the suspect was in custody. He reportedly escaped the scene but was arrested in Harlem after being tracked down through the license plate number of his vehicle.Of the five victims rushed to local hospitals, two of them were in critical condition as of late Saturday, according to the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council for the Hudson Valley region. The organization said one of the victims had been stabbed six times. Governor Andrew Cuomo called the stabbings a “cowardly act” and directed the State Police Hate Crimes Task Force to investigate the incident.“Let me be clear: anti-Semitism and bigotry of any kind are repugnant to our values of inclusion and diversity and we have absolutely zero tolerance for such acts of hate,” Cuomo said in a statement. “In New York we will always stand up and say with one voice to anyone who wishes to divide and spread fear: you do not represent New York and your actions will not go unpunished.”President Trump addressed the “horrific” bloodshed on Sunday afternoon, in a tweet: “We must all come together to fight, confront, and eradicate the evil scourge of anti-Semitism. Melania and I wish the victims a quick and full recovery.”Yossi Gestetner, a co-founder of the OJPAC for the Hudson Valley region, told The New York Times there were “many dozens of people” celebrating in the home at the time of the attack. “It was a Hanukkah celebration,” he was quoted saying. Videos said to have been taken by witnesses showed paramedics rushing to treat the victims in a chaotic scene. The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James released a statement saying she was left “deeply disturbed” by the incident.“There is zero tolerance for acts of hate of any kind and we will continue to monitor this horrific situation,” James said. “I stand with the Jewish community tonight and every night.”New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called the attack “horrific.” “So many Jewish families in our city have close ties to Monsey. We cannot overstate the fear people are feeling right now,” he wrote on Twitter. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also expressed solidarity with the victims during the opening remarks at his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. “Israel condemns in every sense the latest anti-Semitic incidents and the brutal attack in the middle of Hanukkah at the rabbi’s house in Monsey, New York,” he said. “We will work together in every way with the local authorities in order to help eliminate this phenomena. We offer our help to all countries.”The attack comes after at least seven other anti-Semitic incidents were reported in New York City this week, prompting the New York City Police Department to increase the number of officers in predominantly Jewish areas. The stabbings also come less than a month after four people were killed in a “targeted” shooting at a Jersey City kosher supermarket that investigators believe was fueled by a “hatred of the Jewish people.” 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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(Bloomberg) -- Democrats seeking to replace Donald Trump in the White House will have some competition for television viewers during their next debate: The incumbent president himself.Trump’s campaign announced Monday that his next rally would be in Milwaukee on Jan. 14. That’s the same day as the Democratic candidates’ seventh debate, in Des Moines, Iowa.Trump’s impeachment could complicate matters. It’s unclear whether the Democratic debate will proceed if the Senate is holding a trial on articles of impeachment the U.S. House passed earlier this month. Three senators -- Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota -- have qualified for the debate so far.The Milwaukee rally would be the second of the new year for the president. He is to hold a rally Jan. 9 in Toledo, Ohio. Trump won both of the Midwestern states in 2016 and his campaign regards them as critical for his re-election next year.A Trump campaign spokesman, Tim Murtaugh, said the timing wasn’t an accident. “What better counter-programming could there be?” he said.Sanders in ‘Good Health’ Despite Heart AttackDemocratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is in good health and fit to lead the U.S. despite suffering a heart attack in October, according to letters from his doctors that his campaign released on Monday.Sanders, 78, suffered “modest heart muscle damage” after the Oct. 1 heart attack, one of his doctors said, but “has been doing very well since.” Congress’s attending physician Brian Monahan pronounced Sanders “in good health currently,” and his campaign said in a statement that he is “fit and ready to serve as president of the United States.”The Vermont senator’s heart attack was caused by a blockage in the midportion of his left anterior descending coronary artery, Monahan’s letter said. But since then, his “heart muscle strength has improved” and the senator doesn’t have symptoms of congestive heart failure, a life-threatening condition, Monahan wrote.Sanders’s campaign didn’t immediately disclose that he had suffered a heart attack, at first describing the episode as a fleeting episode of chest pain. The more serious diagnosis was revealed three days afterward, though even then the campaign did not describe the severity of the heart attack.Monday’s brief report, consisting of three letters from his physicians, didn’t divulge Sanders’s ejection fraction, a measure of how much damage was done by the heart attack. His ability to exercise was 50% higher than other men his age with a “similar diagnosis” and comparable to men his age without heart disease, according to a letter by a doctor at the University of Vermont Medical Center’s cardiac rehabilitation department. -- Mario ParkerBloomberg Touts Plan to Improve Maternal HealthDemocratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is calling for measures including a free health insurance plan for low-income women and standardizing data collection to improve maternal health and reduce deaths, especially among women of color.The former New York mayor released his plan Monday during a campaign stop in Alabama, which he said has one of the highest maternal- and infant-mortality rates in the U.S.Bloomberg would require training for doctors to address any racial bias in maternal care and centralize collection of maternal mortality data at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to facilitate treatment programs. He said he would also provide a free public-option insurance plan for low-income women, especially in Alabama and other states that did not expand Medicaid under Obamacare. The campaign said it can’t yet provide a formal cost estimate.Bloomberg said he also would seek to encourage better care options in rural areas, repeal the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortions, and support other abortion-rights measures opposed by President Donald Trump.Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. -- Mark NiquetteCOMING UP:Joe Biden is campaigning in New Hampshire on Monday. He will attend community events in Exeter and Derry.Pete Buttigieg is in Iowa through Monday.Cory Booker will return to northern Nevada Monday for an event at the California Building in Reno and then for a roundtable with Latino community leaders in Sparks.On Tuesday, Elizabeth Warren will deliver a New Year’s Eve address from Boston’s historic Old South Meeting House about fighting corruption.Five Democratic candidates -- Warren, Bernie Sanders, Biden, Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have qualified for the next debate, on Jan. 14, in Iowa.(Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)To contact the reporter on this story: Mario Parker in Washington at mparker22@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Alex Wayne, John HarneyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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Former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn, who is awaiting trial in Japan on charges of financial misconduct, has arrived in Beirut, a close friend said Monday. It was not clear how Ghosn, who is of Lebanese origins and holds French and Lebanese passports, left Japan where he was under surveillance and is expected to face trial in April 2020. Ricardo Karam, a television host and friend of Ghosn who interviewed him several times, told The Associated Press Ghosn arrived in Lebanon Monday morning..
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A tweet from U.S. President Donald Trump that identified an intelligence analyst as the alleged whistleblower who helped spark his impeachment was temporarily blocked at the weekend, with Twitter blaming an outage that affected a number of user accounts. In recent days, Trump shared an unsubstantiated media report and a second post that appeared to name the intelligence community member. It was visible again on Sunday afternoon, although the original account that shared the alleged whistleblower's name had been deleted.
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