Faced with a torrent of criticism from cities and states that have been pleading for help to deal with the most critically ill coronavirus victims, President Trump announced on Friday that the federal government would buy thousands of ventilators from a variety of makers, though it appeared doubtful they could be produced in time to help hospitals that are now overwhelmed.

His announcement came shortly after authorizing the government to “use any and all authority available under the Defense Production Act,” a Korean War-era authority allowing the federal government to commandeer General Motors’ factories and supply chains, to produce ventilators.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

President Donald Trump intends to ignore provisions in the newly passed $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill intended to shore up Congress’ oversight of the massive rescue program.

The legislation establishes a “special inspector general” to review and investigate loan decisions made by the treasury secretary as part of the coronavirus relief effort, an accountability measure that was a central part of Democrats’ demands to shore up transparency in the bill. The provision requires the inspector general to notify Congress if he or she is “unreasonably refused or not provided” any information.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Democratic and Republican leaders were scrambling members of Congress back to Washington late Thursday because they suddenly believe the $2 trillion economic relief package might not pass by the voice vote planned for Friday and could be delayed if at least 216 members don’t show up to vote on the floor.

Members are now racing to get back to Washington by Friday morning — in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic — because leaders fear that at least one member, likely to be Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., will demand a recorded vote.

The office of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., wrote in an advisory to members Thursday night: “Members are advised that it is possible this measure will not pass by voice vote.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

A handful of Republican senators on Wednesday threatened to delay the $2 trillion coronavirus spending bill over a proposed increase to unemployment insurance.

In a statement, Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said that the bill could provide a “strong incentive for employees to be laid off instead of going to work” because some people could theoretically make more by being unemployed.

“This isn’t an abstract, philosophical point — it’s an immediate, real-world problem,” they continued. “If the federal government accidentally incentivizes layoffs, we risk life-threatening shortages in sectors where doctors, nurses, and pharmacists are trying to care for the sick, and where growers and grocers, truckers and cooks are trying to get food to families’ tables.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Lacking a meaningful path to the Democratic nomination at a moment when the coronavirus crisis is gripping Washington and the country, Bernie Sanders stepped back from actively campaigning for president over the past week, leading some Democrats to wonder whether he would soon leave the race altogether.

But Tuesday, Sanders appeared to signal anew that he is in the race for the long haul: His campaign announced a full organizing effort ahead of New York’s scheduled April 28 primary, and a spokesman said he would participate in a debate with former Vice President Joe Biden — if there is one.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that they are “very close” to an agreement on a nearly $2 trillion coronavirus economic rescue package, raising the possibility of a Senate vote on the legislation as early as Tuesday.

Following a series of late-night meetings in Schumer’s office in the Capitol — and a phone call with President Donald Trump to review the status of the discussions — Mnuchin and Schumer told reporters around midnight that they hope to have the final agreement in place in the morning.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, has tested positive for coronavirus, his office announced in a statement on Sunday. He is the first senator and the third member of Congress to test positive.

Mr. Paul “is asymptomatic and was tested out of an abundance of caution due to his extensive travel and events,” his office said on Twitter, and he has since self-quarantined. His Washington office began operating remotely 10 days ago, the statement said, and “hence virtually no staff has had contact” with him. The statement did not detail how long Mr. Paul had been in quarantine.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.

The Trump Department of Justice has asked Congress to craft legislation allowing chief judges to indefinitely hold people without trial and suspend other constitutionally-protected rights during coronavirus and other emergencies, according to a report by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan.

While the asks from the Department of Justice will likely not come to fruition with a Democratically-controlled House of Representatives, they demonstrate how much this White House has a frightening disregard for rights enumerated in the Constitution.

Read the rest of the story at Rolling Stone.

Joe Biden, the 2020 Democratic front-runner, slammed President Donald Trump over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic Friday, accusing him of being “behind the curve through his whole response.”

Biden, speaking on a conference call with reporters, offered a series of blunt missives for Trump, and criticized him for repeatedly providing the American people with misinformation about the virus.

“Step up and do your job, Mr. President,” Biden said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

A member of Vice President Mike Pence’s staff has tested positive for the coronavirus, Pence’s office said Friday night.

The staffer’s name and exact position was not released, but Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, said, “Neither President Trump nor Vice President Pence had close contact with the individual.

“Further contact tracing is being conducted in accordance with CDC guidelines,” Miller said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

The State Department is urging all Americans “do not travel” abroad because of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the severe travel restrictions or quarantines imposed by governments around the world.

In an unprecedented global health advisory, the department issued its highest-level alert, usually reserved for war zones or hot spots like Syria, North Korea or Somalia.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News.

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has announced the end to her campaign following continued low placement in national polls, a weak finish during Super Tuesday and subsequent contests and failing to meet the thresholds to participate in the most recent series of Democratic National Committee sponsored debates.

In a letter to supporters, Gabbard cited that the outcome of those contests indicated that voters have chosen former Vice President Joe Biden for president.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News.

Joe Biden doubled his delegate lead over Bernie Sanders in Tuesday’s primaries, giving him a nearly insurmountable advantage after sweeping Florida, Illinois and Arizona, according to NBC News projections.

The former vice president now has 315 more delegates than the senator from Vermont — 1,132 to Sanders’ 817 — after having started the night with an edge of 154.

Biden has passed the halfway mark and is well on his way to the 1,991 delegates he needs to win a majority of all delegates and capture the Democratic presidential nomination.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the Senate would move ahead with a vote on the House’s coronavirus response bill, and urged his Republican colleagues to withhold their objections to the bill and “vote for it anyway.”

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, McConnell said his intention was to hold a vote on the House’s bill as soon as they could, and that the Senate wouldn’t adjourn until they’ve passed legislation to expand on the House’s proposed measures.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

The City That Never Sleeps could be shutting down in 48 hours.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday that he was considering whether to impose a shelter in place order which would essentially require residents to stay in their homes and keep outside social contact to a minimum to slow the spread of the coronavirus in the nation’s largest city.

“New Yorkers should be prepared right now for the possibility of a shelter-in-place order,” de Blasio. “The decision will be made in the next 48 hours.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Actor Idris Elba announced Monday that he has tested positive for coronavirus, but says he has not shown symptoms.

Elba, 47, told his social media followers that he was tested after he discovered he was in close contact with someone else who tested positive, but that he is not experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19, the disease associated with coronavirus. The actor said he was alerted to the exposure on Friday.

“I quarantined myself and got tested immediately and got the results back today,” Elba said. “Look, this is serious, you know? Now is the time to really think about social distancing, washing your hands.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, is holding up the House-passed coronavirus relief bill and preventing it from being delivered to the Senate for a vote.

The House was expected to make technical corrections Monday to the bipartisan measure, passed by the House early Saturday, but Gohmert is insisting on reading them, a Democratic leadership aide confirmed to NBC News on Monday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to nearly zero Sunday, an emergency move that represented its second attempt to stimulate an economy that has been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

By making borrowing as cheap as possible, the central bank hopes businesses and individuals will have ready access to nearly interest-free cash to invest and spend.

After Sunday’s move, the new borrowing rate range is between 0 percent and 0.25 percent.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Joe Biden said for the first time during Sunday’s debate that he will “pick a woman to be my vice president” if he’s the Democratic nominee.

“If I’m elected president, my Cabinet, my administration will look like the country, and I committed that I will pick a woman to be my vice president,” Biden said at the CNN faceoff with Bernie Sanders in Washington.

“There are a number of women qualified to be president,” he added.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Spain prepared to declare a state of emergency on Saturday and Italy tightened its lockdown by closing down parks, while Denmark and Poland became the latest countries to shut their borders to most travelers in a bid to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.

As European countries took ever more severe, though widely varying, measures to reduce contact between their citizens and slow the pandemic, China — where the virus first emerged late last year — continued to ease up lockdown measures in its hardest-hit region.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News.

The president does not need to take a test to determine if he’s positive for coronavirus because two interactions he had with known patients were “low risk,” a White House doctor said in a memo released Friday.

The memo was made public hours after Trump said he would be tested.

“Not for that reason, but because I think I will do it anyway,” the president said Friday when asked about his interaction at his Mar-a-Lago resort last weekend with an aide to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Fabio Wajngarten, who turned up positive.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Donald Trump on Friday announced a new series of measures to combat the coronavirus and treat those who are affected, while pushing back on criticism that his administration was unprepared to confront the pandemic.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Trump declared a national emergency that could free up $50 billion to help fight the pandemic and said that he was empowering the secretary of Health and Human Services to waive certain laws and regulations to ensure the virus can be contained and patients treated.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

U.S. financial markets fell even further on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing more than 2,350 points, almost 10%, in the biggest single-day decline since one of more than 22% in 1987’s Black Monday crash.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq similarly tumbled by 9.51% and 9.43%, with the S&P 500 joining the Dow in bear market territory.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News.

Two-thirds of Americans are concerned that they or someone they know will be infected with the novel coronavirus, but in a country with a growing partisan divide, political tribalism is having a large impact when it comes to anxiety over the disease, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday.

Although unease over the coronavirus is high, it also strongly breaks along partisan lines. Among Democrats, 83% are concerned about getting coronavirus, including 47% who are very concerned, and among Republicans, 56% are concerned, including only 15% who are very concerned. Only 17% of Democrats are not concerned while a larger 44% of Republicans are not concerned.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The next Democratic debate set to take place in Phoenix, Arizona will be held without a live audience due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, the Democratic National Committee and CNN announced Tuesday.
 
“At the request of both campaigns and out of an abundance of caution, there will be no live audience at the Arizona debate taking place on Sunday, March 15th,” said DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa in a statement. “The DNC has been in regular communication with local health officials and the mayor’s office, which advised that we could proceed as planned.”

Read the rest of the story at CBS News.

President Donald Trump headed to Capitol Hill Tuesday to push what he called a “very dramatic” economic relief plan to counter the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, and on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, after experiencing the biggest-ever point drop on Monday, rose close to 800 points in trading near the opening Tuesday before settling down to about 300 points up later in the day — and even in the red at one point –before closing up some 1100 points.

Before leaving the White House, Trump held a photo op with health care company executives who told him they would waive all co-pays for coronavirus testing.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News.

Publicly, he sees it as yet another (“Fake News”) media war; privately, he worries about virus-carrying journalists on Air Force One. But cancel his rallies? “I’m not going to do it,” he says.

Ever since the coronavirus exploded outside of China at the end of January, Donald Trump has treated the public health crisis as a media war that he could win with the right messaging. But with cases now documented in 34 states and markets plunging, Republicans close to Trump fear his rosy assessments are fundamentally detached from reality in ways that will make the epidemic worse. “He is trying to control the narrative and he can’t,” a former West Wing official told me.

Read the rest of the story at Vanity Fair.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a former Democratic presidential candidate, endorsed Joe Biden’s White House bid Monday — becoming the latest of the former vice president’s old primary rivals to back his campaign over that of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“The answer to hatred & division is to reignite our spirit of common purpose,” Booker wrote on Twitter. “@JoeBiden won’t only win – he’ll show there’s more that unites us than divides us. He’ll restore honor to the Oval Office and tackle our most pressing challenges. That’s why I’m proud to endorse Joe.”

Read the rest of the story from Politico.

Stocks across the world tumbled early Monday after a shocking all-out oil price war added to anxiety around the economic fallout from the spreading coronavirus.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average indicated an opening drop of more than 1,300 points. The S&P 500 futures indicated a 5 percent drop at Monday’s open. The S&P futures trading was briefly halted overnight. The sharp declines in the futures market signaled more turbulence ahead after a roller-coaster week that saw the S&P 500 swing up or down more than 2.5 percent for four days straight.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Erik Prince, the security contractor with close ties to the Trump administration, has in recent years helped recruit former American and British spies for secretive intelligence-gathering operations that included infiltrating Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda, according to interviews and documents.

One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the nation. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the union’s local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.

Kamala Harris endorsed Joe Biden on Sunday and said she would “do everything in my power’’ to help elect him, becoming the latest dropout from the Democratic race for president to line up behind the former vice president in his battle with Bernie Sanders for the nomination.

The decision by the California senator who was one of three black candidates seeking to challenge President Donald Trump further solidifies the Democratic establishment’s move to close circles around Biden after his Super Tuesday success. Her endorsements comes before the next round of primaries, with six states voting Tuesday, including Michigan.

Read the rest of the story at The Los Angeles Times

Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor who jumped into the 2020 presidential race late and spent over $500 million on an unorthodox campaign, ended his bid for the Democratic nomination on Wednesday, but vowed to stay in the fight in an attempt to defeat President Donald Trump in November.

“After yesterday’s results, the delegate math has become virtually impossible — and a viable path to the nomination no longer exists,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “But I remain clear-eyed about my overriding objective: victory in November. Not for me, but for our country. And so while I will not be the nominee, I will not walk away from the most important political fight of my life.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Eight months from a general election, President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers are considering an urgent effort to rescue the U.S. economy from a coronavirus panic.

Trump advisers and GOP lawmakers have spent the past few days pushing the White House to develop a package of economic stimulus measures, designed to prop up the economy amid growing fears about the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Mike Bloomberg won his first contest, carrying the American Samoa Democratic caucuses and winning at least four delegates on Super Tuesday, NBC News projected.

Bloomberg won 49.9 percent of the vote, or 175 votes. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, who was born in American Samoa, received 29.3 percent, or 103 votes, and earned one delegate with 99 percent in. One of American Samoa’s six delegates has yet to be awarded.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday will lay out a detailed plan for swift federal action to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

The proposed initiative, which Warren’s presidential campaign shared with HuffPost on Sunday evening, is not another item on Warren’s agenda for what she would do if she becomes president. 

It is, instead, a list of steps that she would like to see Congress and President Donald Trump take right now, in order to contain the outbreak, to help those affected by it, and to stop the economy from falling into a recession.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg plans to endorse former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the Democratic presidential race, according to a person informed of the decision, as the Democratic Party’s moderate wing quickly began coalescing around Mr. Biden in an effort to stop Senator Bernie Sanders from winning the Democratic nomination.

Mr. Buttigieg’s endorsement, which is set to come at a Biden campaign event Monday night in Dallas, follows the news that another moderate candidate, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, was quitting the race and throwing her support to Mr. Biden. She also plans to back Mr. Biden at the Dallas event. Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, was also among those who endorsed Mr. Biden on Monday.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) dropped her presidential bid Monday, an aide told HuffPost.
Klobuchar is set to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden at an event in Dallas on Monday night, The Associated Press reports.

Her decision comes after a poor showing in the South Carolina primary. She picked up just 3% of the vote, flailing in comparison to her fellow moderate Biden, who walked away with 48%.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

Pete Buttigieg, the former small-city Indiana mayor and first openly gay major presidential candidate, said Sunday night he was dropping out of the Democratic race, following a crushing loss in the South Carolina primary where his poor performance with black Democrats signaled an inability to build a broad coalition of voters.

The decision comes just 48 hours before the biggest voting day of the primary, Super Tuesday, when 15 states and territories will allot about one-third of the delegates over all. The results were widely expected to show him far behind Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Bernie Sanders.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.

Tom Steyer, the California activist billionaire who has largely been a nonfactor in the Democratic primary campaign, dropped out of the race on Saturday night.

Steyer’s departure came after a disappointing finish in the South Carolina Democratic primary. With 70 percent of the vote in, Steyer had just 11.5 percent of the vote — despite spending millions of dollars on campaigning there.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Joe Biden got the resounding victory his struggling campaign needed in South Carolina on Saturday night, buoyed by strong support from black voters, according to an NBC News projection.

“Just days ago, the press and the pundits had declared this candidacy dead,” Biden told supporters. “Now, thanks to all of you, the heart of the Democratic Party, we’ve just won and we’ve won big because of you. We are very much alive!”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

The politicization of the coronavirus continues to spread faster than the potential pandemic itself.

President Donald Trump called out “Do Nothing Democrats” for ostensibly saying that the new virus is “the fault of ‘Trump’” while at the same time taking credit for how slow it has spread in the United States. Weird flex, but okay.

In a very early Friday morning tweet that referred to himself in the third person twice, Trump took a curious victory lap for an outbreak that is still growing and has led to the worst week in the stock market since 2008. 

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

Wall Street fell sharply on Thursday for the sixth straight day, with all three major indices entering correction as investor fears multiplied that the coronavirus epidemic could spread to the U.S.

A correction indicates a drop of 10 percent from the 52-week high.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq all plunged at the opening bell, with the Dow falling more than 500 points for a loss of 2 percent. The S&P tumbled by 2.1 percent and the Nasdaq fell by 2.7 percent, marking the worst week for stocks since the financial crisis.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Former President Barack Obama is demanding that a pro-Trump group stop airing a “despicable” ad that uses a recording of Obama’s voice to attack former Vice President Joe Biden — a rare intervention in a race that Obama has largely avoided so far.

“[T]his despicable ad is straight out of the Republican disinformation playbook, and it’s clearly designed to suppress turnout among minority voters in South Carolina by taking President Obama’s voice out of context and twisting his words to mislead viewers,” Katie Hill, Obama’s communications director, told NBC News.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Five people were killed after an employee opened fire at the Molson Coors headquarters in Milwaukee on Wednesday, police said.

Milwaukee police said they responded to reports of a shooting in the area just after 2 p.m. and found the gunman, a 51-year-old Milwaukee man, dead of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Authorities also found five employees of the “old Miller brewery” who had been killed in the attack, Police Chief Alfonso Morales said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A federal judge swung back at President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his heated criticism of the Roger Stone case, warning that the president’s commentary about his longtime associate’s conviction had helped fuel threats to the jury.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson cited Trump’s public comments and Twitter posts, as well as an accompanying campaign from the president’s conservative media allies to identify and critique the jury, as one of the reasons for her decision to clamp down on public access to a hearing on Stone’s request for a new trial.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

President Trump says Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor should recuse themselves from any Supreme Court cases involving him or his administration. Mr. Trump said at a press conference Tuesday in India that he thinks both judges have said terrible things about him.

The president first made the suggestion on Twitter, citing a Fox News segment about Sotomayor saying the majority-conservative court gives relief too quickly to the federal government. Mr. Trump has long harbored frustrations about Ginsburg, who in 2016 called the candidate a “faker.” Sotomayor authored a dissent in a 5-4 decision allowing the administration’s rule restricting public benefits for immigrants, saying the highest court has been too quick to grant “emergency” relief to the federal government. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Wall Street plunged Monday after a spike in the number of reported cases of coronavirus fueled fears that the epidemic would have a serious impact on global economic growth.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by 1,003 points in midday trading Monday, after a volatile session that saw the blue-chip index lose 979 points at the opening bell, erasing all gains for the year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell by 4 percent, with the S&P 500 dropping 3.2 percent.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape and a felony sex crime Monday, marking a climactic end to a high-profile case that in some ways serves as vindication of the #MeToo movement.

Those two counts were connected to individual allegations made by Mimi Haley, a former Weinstein Co. production assistant, and Jessica Mann, a once-aspiring actress. Weinstein was acquitted on the two most serious charges of predatory sexual assault, which each carried a potential life sentence.

Read the rest of the story at The Los Angeles Times.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, who wields enormous influence in his home state of South Carolina, is planning to endorse Joe Biden on Wednesday, multiple sources with knowledge of the Democrat’s plans told POLITICO.

The planned endorsement is expected three days ahead of the state’s Saturday primary, giving Biden an important boost in a state that will likely determine the fate of his candidacy. Clyburn, the highest ranking African American in Congress, has long been close with Biden and has been open about his affinity for the former vice president during the Democratic primary.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton threw cold water on the impact of his own potential testimony in the Senate trial of President Donald Trump, telling an audience that it “would have made no difference to the ultimate outcome.”

Bolton, who was infamously not called to testify before the Senate, has come under increasing fire of late after continuing to play coy about what he knows about Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine. Instead of speaking out publicly, Bolton has repeatedly teased cryptic hints from his forthcoming book about his time in the White House, and been pilloried for what is seen as a craven attempt to sell more copies.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Roger Stone, President Trump’s longtime friend, to serve three years and four months in prison for impeding a congressional investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The penalty from U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson comes after weeks of infighting over the politically charged case that threw the Justice Department into crisis, and it is likely not to be the final word. Even before the sentencing hearing began, Trump seemed to suggest on Twitter he might pardon Stone. With the proceedings ongoing, Trump questioned whether his ally was being treated fairly.

Read the rest of the story at The Washington Post.

Two passengers from a cruise ship quarantined in Japanese waters have died from the novel coronavirus, officials said.

It’s the first deaths to occur out of the hundreds of confirmed cases from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

The deceased patients — a man and a woman — were in their 80s and were residents of Japan. Both were taken ashore for treatment last week after having prolonged fevers, and they ultimately tested positive for the newly identified virus, known officially as COVID-19. They both died Thursday, according to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which is leading and coordinating the public health response on board the cruise ship.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News.

Republican strategist Roger Stone, a close friend of President Trump, will be sentenced Thursday despite his ongoing efforts to overturn the guilty verdicts against him, a federal judge in Washington federal court ruled.
“There’s been a lot of work that’s gone into the sentencing,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said Tuesday. “It makes sense to proceed.”
Jackson said that “execution of the sentence will be deferred” while she decides whether Stone deserves a new trial.

Read the rest of the story at The Washington Post

President Trump granted clemency to a slew of high-profile individuals Tuesday, including Rod R. Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who was convicted on corruption charges in 2011 related to trying to sell then-President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat, and Bernie Kerik, the former New York police commissioner jailed on eight felony charges, including tax fraud.

Trump is also planning to grant clemency to Michael Milken, who was charged with insider trading in the 1980s, according to a senior administration official.

Read the rest of the story at The Washington Post

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg on Tuesday qualified for his first appearance in a Democratic presidential primary debate.

The billionaire media mogul received 19 percent of support from an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, allowing him to join the stage at the Feb. 19 debate in Las Vegas.

Candidates need four national polls showing 10 percent or higher support or 12 percent or more in two single-state polls of Nevada and South Carolina. They have until 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 18 to qualify for the debate, which is being hosted by NBC News, MSNBC and the Nevada Independent.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Nevada Democrats are cheering the high turnout in the first two days of early voting of their state’s Democratic presidential caucuses, hoping that the strong participation will translate to enthusiasm for beating President Donald Trump in November.

The Nevada Democratic Party reported that over 11,800 voted on Saturday, the first of four days of early voting, leading up to the official caucus date of Saturday, February 22. To put that number in perspective, about 84,000 total Nevada Democrats caucused in 2016.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

A top National Institutes of Health official said Sunday that at least 40 Americans on a quarantined cruise ship in Japan have been infected with the deadly coronavirus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with host Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that infected Americans aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship would be treated at hospitals in Japan. Fauci gave the number as 40, though other reports indicated that the number might be higher.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

It wasn’t a campaign event, but this year’s Daytona 500 race had many of the trappings of a MAGA rally with spectators in red hats, waving American flags, and holding Trump signs inside and outside the Daytona International Speedway.

President Donald Trump’s reelection machine took full advantage of the millions of NASCAR eyeballs watching on race day by airing an ad on Fox and flying a bright red “KEEP AMERICA GREAT!” banner near the track. Fox carried the event live on television, and Fox News commentator and Trump stalwart Judge Jeanine Pirro, Donald Trump Jr. and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle watched from a VIP section of the track.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., rebuked Attorney General William Barr on Thursday for his role in reducing the proposed sentence of Trump associate Roger Stone earlier this week.

“A.G. Barr has deeply damaged the rule of law by withdrawing the DOJ’s sentencing recommendation, the act of interference in Trump’s retribution against [the] lead attorney in the Stone case,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press conference.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly seemingly unleashed on a number of news topics related to President Donald Trump during a 75 minutes speech at Drew University Wednesday night, but his description of his former boss’s call to Ukraine President Voldymor Zelinsky and defense of now-fired Col. Alexander Vindman are certain to get the most attention.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

Andrew Yang’s improbable rise in the Democratic primary came to an end Tuesday night when the entrepreneur and political newcomer announced he was leaving the race after a disappointing finish in New Hampshire.

“There was a part of me that thought that we might be able to win this race and get this done this cycle,” Yang told POLITICO in an interview. “And so there’s a lot of disappointment, because when you’re goal oriented and you’re a builder, it’s very hard to pat yourself on the back and say, job well done, if you didn’t win. But rationally and objectively, I know that we’ve done something unprecedented and remarkable.”

Read the rest of the story at Politico

The entire team prosecuting Roger Stone abruptly resigned from the criminal case on Tuesday after the Justice Department said it planned to reduce the recommended sentence for Stone, a longtime Trump associate.

The Justice Department on Tuesday said it was pulling back on its request to sentence Stone to seven to nine years in prison after President Donald Trump blasted the sentencing proposal as “a miscarriage of justice.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday hinted that additional officials could be forced out of their roles following the ousters last week of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Gordon Sondland — both high-profile witnesses in the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump.

Asked during an interview on “Fox & Friends” whether there will be more dismissals in the days to come, Conway said, “maybe,” and sought to defend Vindman’s removal from a detail at the National Security Council. Vindman’s twin brother Yevgeny, who had served as a senior lawyer on the NSC, was also forced out of the White House on Friday.

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The U.S. military is preparing to report a more than 50% jump in cases of traumatic brain injury stemming from Iran’s missile attack on a base in Iraq last month, U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement, said there were over 100 cases of TBI, up from the 64 previously reported last month.

The Pentagon declined to comment, but in the past had said to expect an increase in numbers in the weeks after the attack because symptoms can take time to manifest and troops can sometimes take longer to report them.

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“Parasite,” Bong Joon-ho’s gleefully twisted tale of economic inequality, won top honors at the 92nd Academy Awards on Sunday, closing out a ceremony that ran for more than three hours and featured a mix of splashy musical numbers and nods to real-world politics.

Click here for a look at six key moments and themes from the show from NBC News.

Seven candidates will face off in the Democratic debate ahead of New Hampshire’s primary election, ABC News announced Friday.

ABC News is hosting the eighth Democratic primary debate of the campaign cycle in partnership with Apple News and Hearst Television’s WMUR-TV, ABC’s affiliate station in New Hampshire. The debate, sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee, will take place at Saint Anselm College’s Sullivan Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire.

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President Donald Trump lashed out early Tuesday morning at Sen. Mitt Romney over his vote to convict the president on two articles of impeachment, ridiculing the Utah lawmaker once again over his defeat in the 2012 presidential election.

“Had failed presidential candidate @MittRomney devoted the same energy and anger to defeating a faltering Barack Obama as he sanctimoniously does to me, he could have won the election,” Trump wrote online shortly after midnight. “Read the Transcripts!”

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Fred Guttenberg, who lost his 14-year-old daughter in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, was escorted out of the gallery during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday.

The dramatic moment unfolded as the president mentioned that he would protect gun rights. Guttenberg was heard shouting from the speaker’s box as the president spoke and he was quickly removed from the audience by a plainclothes police officer.

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Limited results released Tuesday by the Iowa Democratic Party show former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leading Iowa’s Democratic presidential caucuses, with former Vice President Joe Biden in a surprising fourth place.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was in third place in the initial returns, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota was in fifth. 
 
The results remained difficult to parse: Only 62% of precincts have been counted, and it is unknown whether they are representative of the full state. Sanders led by one metric (the final popular vote) while Buttigieg led by another (state delegate equivalents).

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Surreal will be the word of the evening as President Trump marches into the same House chamber where he was impeached just seven weeks ago to address the nation even as he is on trial for high crimes and misdemeanors on the other side of the Capitol.

The president’s annual address on Tuesday comes after two weeks of arguments on the Senate floor about whether he should be removed from office and a day before a scheduled final vote. With acquittal virtually assured, Mr. Trump will use his speech to set the terms for the remainder of the year as he heads toward the November election in search of a second term.

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Saying Donald Trump has “betrayed our national security” and will do so again, Rep. Adam Schiff used his closing arguments in the president’s impeachment trial on Monday to urge the Senate to take a stand against “a man without character.”

“We must say enough — enough! He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again,” Schiff, D-Calif., told the Senate. “He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What’s right matters even less, and decency matters not at all.”

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The Senate on Friday night ushered in the final phase of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial hours after an effort to call witnesses failed largely on party lines, with an all-but-assured acquittal set for next week.

Senators passed a resolution from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., laying out the rules for closing the roughly two-week-long trial. The resolution, which passed by a vote of 53-47, sets the final vote on Trump’s fate for Wednesday at 4 p.m.

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As the Senate impeachment trial goes into its third week, support for removing President Donald Trump from office remains steady, with half of voters registering approval for his conviction despite his all-but-certain acquittal, according to the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

The new poll conducted Jan. 29-30 and released Saturday shows minimal change in public opinion about the trial. While 50 percent approval and 43 percent disapproval for a Senate conviction represent a slightly wider gap than the last POLITICO/Morning Consult survey, both numbers remain within the poll’s margin of error.

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More than two months before he asked Ukraine’s president to investigate his political opponents, President Trump directed John R. Bolton, then his national security adviser, to help with his pressure campaign to extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Trump gave the instruction, Mr. Bolton wrote, during an Oval Office conversation in early May that included the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, who is now leading the president’s impeachment defense.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.