David Roback, a Founder of the Band Mazzy Star, Is Dead at 61

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Bloomberg’s sponsored content on meme accounts pushes Instagram’s boundaries.

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Women in Mexico Are Urged to Disappear for a Day in Protest

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Claire Bretécher, Satirical French Cartoonist, Dies at 79

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South Carolina debate drew more than 15 million viewers.

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Tribal Nation Condemns ‘Desecration’ to Build Border Wall

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Australian Rules Football Confronts C.T.E.

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Obama denounces a Republican super PAC’s deceptive anti-Biden ad.

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The 2020 Democratic Primary Is Giving Some Republicans Déjà Vu

By BY NICK CORASANITI AND JEREMY W. PETERS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3abwcJs

Weinstein Was Convicted. Can D.A. Vance Now Win Over His Critics?

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China’s Rover Finds Layers of Surprise Under Moon’s Far Side

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More Than 15 Million Tuned In for CBS’s Democratic Debate

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ABC News suspends veteran correspondent over comments captured in undercover Project Veritas video

ABC News said it suspended veteran correspondent David Wright because his comments hurt the network's "reputation for fairness and impartiality."

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Iran’s Incompetent Response to Coronavirus Threatens the Middle East and the World

The Iranian government has covered up an outbreak of coronavirus that now threatens the Middle East and has led to border closures and hospitalizations in five countries. Over the weekend of February 21, president Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian officials downplayed the growing crises as Iran’s death toll from the virus climbed. It is now apparent that the regime, which has threatened the region with ballistic missiles, drones, naval mines, and militias over the last few years, has become a health threat as well, as it incubates a potential pandemic. The coronavirus has likely traveled from China to Iran’s city of Qom along the same route that pilgrims and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps uses to travel, illustrating the regime’s disregard for its own citizens and neighbors.It all began with Iran’s wanting to show the world it had higher turnout at recent elections. Iranian member of parliament Mahmoud Sadeghi called on officials to take the coronavirus seriously during elections, and alleged that the government was hiding the outbreak of the contagious virus last week. Instead, Iran’s regime kept the extent of the spread of the virus under wraps, keeping it off the homepages of major local media. Turkish officials also warned last week that there were 750 coronavirus cases in Iran, and that it had spread from the religious city of Qom to other regions. Yet Iran’s deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi downplayed fears on Monday, claiming rumors of 50 deaths were false. Now Haririchi and Sadeghi are both sick, and Iran’s death toll is the second-worst for the virus, after China itself.Iran’s failure to confront the health crises is not just due to the regime’s authoritarianism. China has fought the virus with authoritarian quarantining of Wuhan. Instead, it is the regime’s preexisting arrogance, conspiracy-minded behavior, and siege mentality that led to its discounting an emerging crisis and enabled Shi’ite pilgrims traveling to Qom from all over the world to continue praying together and traveling without checks, becoming incubators of the virus. People returning from Iran have spread the virus across the Gulf to Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. They have returned to Najaf, a holy city in Iraq, where dozens are now under observation.Iran couldn’t have chosen a worse time in the Middle East to do this. Countries such as Iraq are beset by protests and uncertainty, with Iraq specifically lacking a new government and threatened by ISIS resurgence. The Gulf already has one crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar and is economically on edge due to serving as a transport hub linked to global trade amid all this. China’s coronavirus has spooked markets, and Iran is adding to the disaster.The Iranian regime has mocked coronavirus as similar to the flu in recent comments. And it has weaponized the tragedy to use it against U.S. sanctions by claiming that, like the sanctions, it is overrated. Iran’s government is using the Iranian people as a human shield, and their alleged lack of suffering from the virus as a propaganda tool. Yet ultimately, the virus may be more of a threat to Rouhani’s government than he realizes. With officials sick, schools closed, and the military, police, and IRGC mobilized, the regime may find that propaganda won’t cure this crisis. Iran’s regime has survived using brutality, killing protesters last year, shooting down an airline this year, and blaming others for its problems while it seeks to attack Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. But Iran was unprepared for an epidemic, and its normal arsenal won’t save it.Unfortunately for the Gulf, Iraq, and other countries, Iran’s incubation is a threat to the world now. Its airlines, such as Mahan Air, have likely spread the virus to Lebanon and brought it from China. Mahan Air and other Iranian IRGC-linked firms have transported arms and operatives throughout the region. It wouldn’t be a surprise if a similar route enabled the virus to spread unchecked. The regime’s toxic blend of religion, militancy, and authoritarianism have come together in the worst possible way at the worst time in a fragile region.

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Pete Buttigieg called Mike Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk record 'racist' before admitting he had a 'lot of issues' with policing in South Bend

The two candidates have faced scrutiny over their records on policing and racial bias as mayors of New York and South Bend, Indiana.

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2020 polls: Biden leading heading into South Carolina with Steyer a surprise second

Former Vice President Joe Biden has an 18 point lead over his Democratic rivals heading into Saturday's South Carolina primary according to a Clemson University poll released on Wednesday.The poll reported that 35 per cent of respondents supported Mr Biden in the upcoming primary. Entrepreneur Tom Steyer, who has focused campaign advertising on the state, is in second place at 17 per cent.

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New cases of coronavirus in other countries exceeded those in China for the first time on Tuesday

The coronavirus may be slowing down in China, but World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that it's no time for complacency.In a weekly briefing, Gehbreyesus had some good news about China, especially beyond the Hubei province, where the virus originated. There were reportedly only 10 new cases detected outside of Hubei on Tuesday. On the other hand, Tuesday was the first day in which the number of new cases in other countries exceeded the number in China, in large part because of rapid increases in countries like Iran, Italy, and South Korea. Outside of China, there are now 2,790 reported cases in 37 countries, and 44 deaths.Still, Gehbreyesus pointed out there's been progress in containing the virus' spread, as 14 of those countries haven't reported a new case in more than a week and nine haven't reported a new case in more than two weeks. Of course, that doesn't mean those countries are out of the woods, since more cases could eventually seep their way in, but it does signal the cases that had already made it to those countries have been contained. Read the rest of Gehbreyesus' address here.More stories from theweek.com Rush Limbaugh is fueling a coronavirus conspiracy theory about Rod Rosenstein's sister Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity Trump's coronavirus response is worse than incompetent

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The world's biggest iPhone maker has hired the scientist known as the 'SARS hero' to oversee its reopening as it resumes production

Apple's main manufacturing partner, Foxconn, just hired the head of China's coronavirus investigation as an adviser.

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Court OKs Texas winner-take-all presidential elector system

The winner-take-all system Texas and 47 other states use to assign Electoral College presidential votes is constitutional, a federal appeals court said Wednesday. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans unanimously upheld a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the Texas system. It was the latest defeat for organizations challenging such systems in Texas and three other states.

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Valet accidentally shot in the face by Boston police at Brigham and Women's Hospital

Police were responding to a call of a person with a gun. The gun was later determined to be a replica and the suspect was fatally shot.

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Gandhi's great grandson hits out at Trump for political visitors' book message

Mahatma Gandhi’s great grandson has led a chorus of indignation at the message Donald Trump left in the visitors' book at the Ashram set up by the Indian freedom fighter.Mr Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visited the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad on Monday as part of the first leg of their tour of India. They toured the site with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and watched a demonstration of the charkha wheel — the small, portable, hand-cranked spinning wheel that Gandhi used to promote his teaching. Mr Trump, along with Mr Modi, also garlanded a photo of Mahatma Gandhi.

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China to Russia: End discriminatory coronavirus measures against Chinese

China's embassy in Russia has demanded authorities in Moscow end what it said are discriminatory anti-coronavirus measures against Chinese nationals, saying they are damaging relations and alarming Chinese residents of the Russian capital. The complaint, detailed in an embassy letter to the city's authorities and published by Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta late on Tuesday, deplored what it called "ubiquitous monitoring" of Chinese nationals, including on public transport in Moscow. Russia, which enjoys strong political and military ties with Beijing, does not currently have any confirmed cases of coronavirus, but has temporarily barred many categories of Chinese nationals from entering the country.

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Two longstanding abortion-related measures fail in the US Senate

Two longstanding abortion measures failed to advance in the Senate Tuesday after being helmed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

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