Xi’s early involvement in virus outbreak raises questions

BEIJING (AP) — A recent speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping that has been published by state media indicates for the first time that he was leading the response to a new virus outbreak from early on in the crisis.

The publication of the Feb. 3 speech was an apparent attempt to demonstrate that the Communist Party leadership had acted decisively from the beginning, but also opens Xi up to criticism over why the public was not alerted sooner.

In the speech, Xi said he gave instructions on fighting the virus on Jan. 7 and ordered the shutdown that began on Jan. 23 of cities at the epicenter of the outbreak. His remarks were published by state media late Saturday.

“On Jan. 22, in light of the epidemic’s rapid spread and the challenges of prevention and control, I made a clear request that Hubei province implement comprehensive and stringent controls over the outflow of people,” Xi told a meeting of the party’s standing committee, its top body.

The number of new cases in mainland China fell for a third straight day, China’s National Health Commission reported Sunday. The 2,009 new cases in the previous 24-hour period brought the total to 68,500.

Commission spokesman Mi Feng said the percentage of severe cases has dropped to 7.2% of the total from a peak of 15.9% on Jan. 27. The proportion is higher in Wuhan, the Hubei city where the outbreak started, but has fallen to 21.6% from a peak of 32.4% on Jan. 28.

“The national efforts against the epidemic have shown results,” Mi said at the commission’s daily media briefing.

China reported 142 more deaths, almost all in Hubei, raising the mainland China death toll to 1,665. Another 9,419 people have recovered from COVID-19, a disease caused by a new coronavirus, and have been discharged from hospitals.

Four people have died outside of mainland China, as the virus has spread to more than two dozen countries.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened an experts meeting to discuss measures to contain the virus in his country, where one person has died and more than a dozen cases emerged in the past few days without any obvious link to China.

“The situation surrounding this virus is changing by the minute,” Abe said.

About 400 Americans on a quarantined cruise ship in Japan were awaiting charter flights home, as Japan announced another 70 infections had been confirmed on the Diamond Princess. Canada, Hong Kong and Italy said they were planning similar flights.

Xi’s role was muted in the early days of the epidemic, which has grown into one of the biggest political challenges of his seven-year tenure.

The disclosure of his speech indicates top leaders knew about the outbreak’s potential severity weeks before such dangers were made known to the public. It was not until late January that officials said the virus can spread between humans and public alarm began to rise.

Zhang Lifan, a commentator in Beijing, said it’s not clear why the speech was published now. One message could be that local authorities should take responsibility for failing to take effective measures after Xi gave instructions in early January. Alternatively, it may mean that Xi, as the top leader, is willing to take responsibility because he was aware of the situation, Zhang said.

Trust in the government’s approach to outbreaks remains fractured after the SARS epidemic of 2002 and 2003, which was covered up for months.

Authorities in Hubei and Wuhan faced public fury over their initial handling of the epidemic. Wuhan on Jan. 23 became the first city to impose an unprecedented halt on outbound transportation, a measure since expanded to other cities with a combined population of more than 60 million.

The anger reached a peak earlier this month following the death of Li Wenliang, a young doctor who was reprimanded by local police for trying to spread a warning about the virus. He ended up dying of the disease himself.

In apparent response, the Communist Party’s top officials in Hubei and Wuhan were dismissed and replaced last week.

Even as authorities have pledged transparency through the current outbreak, citizen journalists who challenged the official narrative with video reports from Wuhan have disappeared and are believed to be detained.

The fall in new cases follows a spike of more than 15,000 on Thursday, when Hubei began to include cases that had been diagnosed by a doctor but not yet confirmed by laboratory tests.

Overwhelmed by the number of suspected cases, the province has not been able to test every person exhibiting symptoms. The clinical diagnosis is based on doctors’ analyses and lung imaging and is intended to allow probable cases to be treated as confirmed ones without the need to wait for a lab result.

About 400 Americans aboard the cruise ship docked at Yokohama, near Tokyo, were told to decide whether to stay or take chartered aircraft arranged by the U.S. government to fly them home, where they would face another 14-day quarantine. Those going were to begin leaving the ship Sunday night. People with symptoms were to be banned from the flights.

About 255 Canadians and 330 Hong Kong residents are on board the ship or undergoing treatment in Japanese hospitals. There are 35 Italians, of which 25 are crew members, including the captain. The 70 new cases on the Diamond Princess raised the number of infected to 355.

American passenger Matthew Smith told The Associated Press that he and his wife were not taking the flights, because the 14-day quarantine for the ship is set to end on Wednesday. The evacuees will be taken to Travis Air Force Base in California, with some continuing to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.

Malaysia said it would not allow any more passengers from another cruise ship to transit the country after an 83-year-old American woman from the MS Westerdam tested positive for the virus.

She was among 145 passengers who flew from Cambodia to Malaysia on Friday. Her husband also had symptoms but tested negative for the virus. The Westerdam was turned away from four ports around Asia before Cambodia allowed it to dock in Sihanoukville late last week.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said that her country would bar cruise ships that came from or transit any Chinese ports from docking.

Cambodia said earlier that all 1,455 passengers on the Holland America-operated ship had tested negative for the virus.

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Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu and researcher Henry Hou in Beijing and writers Yuri Kageyama and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Frances D’Emilio in Rome and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

Pompeo ‘outraged’ by UN list of firms with settlement ties

JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday said he is “outraged” by the U.N.’s publication of a list of companies accused of violating Palestinian human rights by operating in Israel’s West Bank settlements.

In a statement, Pompeo said the list supports a Palestinian-led boycott movement and “delegitimizes” Israel. He urged other countries to join the U.S. in rejecting the effort.

“The United States has long opposed the creation or release of this database,” Pompeo said. “Its publication only confirms the unrelenting anti-Israel bias so prevalent at the United Nations.”

The database, released Wednesday after years of delays, listed 112 companies that the U.N. human rights office said are complicit in rights violations by bolstering Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

The list is dominated by Israeli companies, including major banks, construction companies, supermarkets and gas stations. But it also includes a number of global brands, including American firms Airbnb, General Mills and Motorola Solutions.

The Palestinians seek the West Bank and east Jerusalem — captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — as parts of an independent state, and the vast majority of the world considers Israeli settlements to be illegal.

President Donald Trump, however, has taken a more lenient position, tolerating continued Israeli settlement construction and releasing a Mideast plan last month that envisions giving Israel permanent control over all of its settlements.

The U.N. list does not impose any penalties on the companies or accuse them of acting illegally. Instead, it appears to be aimed at pressuring them into changing their business practices by drawing negative attention to their ties to a contentious Israeli policy.

Israel denounced the list and accused the U.N. rights office of collaborating with the boycott movement in compiling the names.

The BDS movement promotes boycotts, sanctions and divestment against Israel in a nonviolent campaign that it says is aimed at defending Palestinian rights.

Israel says the movement seeks the country’s destruction and accuses it of anti-Semitism — a charge that BDS leaders vociferously reject.

Trump expected to raise $10 million during Florida stop

President Donald Trump, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, steps off Air Force One at the Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Feb. 14, 2020, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump mixed reelection business with pleasure during a weekend stop at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, attending a fundraiser on Saturday evening expected to raise $10 million for his campaign and the Republican National Committee.

The event was believed to be his most expensive fundraiser ever, with invitations going to donors who gave $580,600 per couple, according to The Washington Post, which obtained an invitation to the event at the Palm Beach estate of billionaire investor Nelson Peltz.

Pro-Trump groups have been shattering fundraising records on the path toward a goal of raising $1 billion this election cycle.

Advocacy groups that have sought campaign finance reform said the Supreme Court paved the way for such fundraising hauls by striking down in 2014 the limit on the total amount of money an individual could give to all political party committees in a two-year election cycle.

“The ability of Trump to raise these astronomical amounts of influence money from billionaires and multimillionaires is a direct result of the Supreme Court’s utter failure to understand the nation’s campaign finance laws or the implications of its decision,” said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer in an op-ed published in Medium.

In that 5-4 decision the Supreme Court found that limits on the total amount of money donors can give to all candidates, committees and political parties were unconstitutional.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has criticized some of his fellow Democratic presidential candidates for accepting campaign donations from the extremely wealthy, questioning whether those who accept the donations would stand up to those who provide them if the situation called for it.

Dishonest Democrat Cartoons

Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer couldn’t name Mexican president in interview

Dishonest Democrats

Democratic presidential candidates Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer couldn’t name the Mexican president when asked for it during a televised interview in Nevada Thursday.
The two, along with Pete Buttigieg, were separately interviewed by Spanish-language station Telemundo after a candidate forum hosted by the League of United Latin American Citizens.
MEXICAN MIGRANTS SENT RECORD $36B IN REMITTANCES IN 2019
Klobuchar, a Minnesota senator, replied, “No,” when asked who the Mexican president is.
“I forgot,” was billionaire businessman Tom Steyer’s response.

Presidential hopefuls Tom Steyer and Amy Klobuchar each reportedly drew a blank when asked to name the president of Mexico during a campaign event in Nevada.

Buttigieg, the former South Bend, Indiana mayor, was the only candidate to correctly name Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrado, though he didn’t seem too confident.
“Lopez Obrador, I hope,” he answered with a smile.
No other 2020 presidential candidates were present at Thursday’s forum, but Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders addressed the audience via video.
Wire service reports contributed to this story.

Rashida Tlaib briefly detained during airline catering workers’ protest

Dishonest Democrat

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., was briefly detained by police Friday when she joined airline catering employees in a protest at Detroit Metro Airport, according to reports.
Photos posted on social media showed Tlaib, 43, sitting in the road outside the airport’s Delta terminal, along with eight other protesters – while a larger group of protesters demonstrated on the sidewalk nearby. Many held signs reading, “One Job Should Be Enough,” as the group called for better wages health coverage.
Initial reports said Tlaib was arrested in the matter, but a union official later said Tlaib was only briefly detained.
Tlaib, a first-term congresswoman from Detroit who has been in office since January 2019, later posted a Twitter message about the incident, saying other protesters had been arrested.
It was not Tlaib’s first encounter with law enforcement. Back in July, video surfaced on social media of a 2016 incident, in which Tlaib – prior to running for Congress – is dragged out of a Detroit event featuring then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.
At the time Tlaib was a public interest attorney at the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, after being term-limited out of the Michigan state legislature.
Tlaib quickly drew national attention after taking office in Washington, when she publicly vowed to “impeach the mother-----,” referring to Trump, the newly inaugurated president.
In December, Trump called out Tlaib after she posted video of herself excitedly heading to the Capitol to cast her impeachment vote against him.
Fox News' Ronn Blitzer contributed to this story.

San Francisco mayor admits past romance, $5G car-repair loan from subject of FBI corruption probe

Dishonest Democrats

San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Friday admitted having a 20-year friendship and brief romantic relationship with a former city worker now under FBI investigation, prompting some to call for her resignation.
“I write this in the spirit of transparency because in the wake of a scandal at City Hall, I think San Franciscans are entitled to hear directly from their Mayor,” Breed wrote in a post on Medium of her association with former San Francisco public works director Mohammed Nuru, who was indicted for public corruption last month.
At a news conference, Breed explained she wrote the post because there were “a number of rumors” swirling and she wanted San Franciscans to hear about the relationship directly from her, the Bay Area's FOX 2 reported.

Former director of San Francisco Public Works Mohammed Nuru (left) and San Francisco Mayor London Breed (right). (AP/Office of Mayor London Breed )

Breed wrote she was profoundly shocked and disappointed when she heard about the charges against Nuru.
“To be clear,” she wrote. “I never asked Mohammed Nuru to do anything improper, and he never asked me to do anything improper.”
Still, she admitted accepting $5,600 from Nuru last year for a car repair she hasn’t paid back yet. She said the disclosure was not required but she did it out of transparency.
Supervisor Gordon Mar suggested the mayor should temporarily step back from her duties, according to FOX 2.

"Mayor Breed's admission of thousands of dollars in unreported gifts from a subordinate is likely illegal, certainly unethical, and part of a culture of casual corruption that is eroding the faith of the public,” Mar said in a statement. “Given the seriousness of this admission, the direct connection to the central figure in the FBI's investigation into public corruption, I believe we need to put the people of San Francisco first. I believe Mayor Breed should do the right thing and temporarily step back from her duties until a full, independent investigation can be completed."

"Mayor Breed's admission of thousands of dollars in unreported gifts from a subordinate is likely illegal, certainly unethical, and part of a culture of casual corruption that is eroding the faith of the public.”
— San Francisco Supervisor Gordon Mar

Supervisor Hillary Ronen, a political opponent, called the admission “troubling” and said Breed should resign.
Supervisor Dean Preston said Breed should appear before the  Board of Supervisors.
"I am deeply concerned with revelations today that Mayor London Breed violated San Francisco law by taking thousands of dollars in gifts from a City Hall subordinate," he tweeted.
Breed added, "I will not apologize for dating someone two decades ago. I will not apologize for remaining close friends with him and his family for 20 more years. But neither will I make excuses for any misdeeds."
Nuru and restaurant owner Nick Bovis were arrested late last month and charged with corruption and lying to the FBI.
They are accused of attempting to bribe an airport commissioner to vote in favor of allowing a business owned by Bovis at the airport and accepting gifts from a Chinese developer in town for business, FOX 2 reported.
Nuru resigned this week but both men deny the accusations.

US coronavirus plan would evacuate some Americans from quarantined cruise ship in Japan: report

Hundreds of Americans quarantined on a cruise ship docked off the coast of Yokohama, Japan, for more than a week due to a coronavirus – now called COVID-19 -- outbreak onboard will have the chance to evacuate, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday, according to a report.
Approximately 380 Americans and their families on the Diamond Princess will be offered seats on two flights that could arrive at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento, Calif., as early as Sunday, a CDC official told The Wall Street Journal.

A group of quarantined passengers exercise on the Diamond Princess cruise ship Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, in Yokohama, near Tokyo. (Associated Press)

A CDC team will screen passengers and those exhibiting symptoms won’t be allowed on the flights.
Passengers were placed under in a two-week quarantine Feb. 5 and since then the number of cases onboard has climbed to 218, including some Americans, in the largest outbreak outside of China.
There are a total of 428 Americans onboard the ship, The New York Post reported.

The quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship is shown in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Feb. 11, 2020. (Associated Press)

In a letter, nine U.S. House representatives, led by Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., had urged the Trump administration to evacuate the Americans. Roe is a physician and the ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
“From firsthand accounts, we are concerned about the existing level of care available on the ship, particularly to the 428 US citizens aboard, as well as the national security concerns posed by reported quarantine conditions,” the lawmakers wrote, according to The Post.

“From firsthand accounts, we are concerned about the existing level of care available on the ship, particularly to the 428 US citizens aboard, as well as the national security concerns posed by reported quarantine conditions.”
— Letter from U.S. lawmakers, urging evacuation of Americans aboard cruise ship

Roe said he has been in contact with Dr. Arnold Hopland, a physician from Elizabethton, Tenn., who is aboard the ship. Hopland told Roe that crew members have been doing their best to protect the quarantined pasengers, the Johnson City Press reported.
Once in the U.S., the evacuated passengers will either be quarantined for two weeks at the California base or at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, The Journal reported.
Around 230 Americans who were evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the virus, are already in quarantine at Travis. The arriving cruise ship passengers would be kept separate from them.
Earlier this week, the cruise ship company said Japanese health officials would remove some passengers to finish their quarantine at an onshore facility.
More than 66,000 people have been sickened in mainland China and more than 1,500 have been killed by the virus as of Friday evening.
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In Beijing, state-run TV Friday announced residents returning from Lunar New Year celebrations must quarantine themselves for two weeks and could face legal consequences otherwise, according to The Times.

Maxine Waters Cartoons

Maxine Waters says California deserves more clout in Dem primaries: ‘We are supplying tremendous dollars’

Democrat

Thanks to a bill that former Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in 2017, California will hold its presidential primary election in March this year rather than June, giving the 2020 Democratic candidates an earlier shot at capturing the Golden State’s nearly 500 delegates.
But U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters argues that her home state – the nation’s most populous (because of Illegals), with nearly 40 million residents -- is still getting shortchanged when it comes to influencing which Democrat carries the party’s banner in presidential elections.
“A lot of people have come to the conclusion that it should not simply be Iowa and New Hampshire, that certainly they are not reflective of the makeup of this country,” the Los Angeles-area congresswoman told CNBC on Thursday. “And so, California has a role to play.”
Waters, 81, who has served in Congress since 1991, noted that few other states can match California when it comes to fundraising for Democratic candidates.
“We have candidates who fly out to Los Angeles from everywhere to raise money," Waters told CNBC host Kelly Evans, the Washington Free Beacon reported. “You would have two, three, four at a time in Beverly Hills having dinners and some of our contributors, who are very rich, were holding fancy parties, trying to accommodate the requests for donations and contributions.”
According to Waters, “The thinking is that if we are supplying tremendous dollars to candidates, we ought to have more say.”

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is seen at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 18, 2019. (Associated Press)

“More say” was said to be the intention behind the bill that Brown signed in 2017.
“Candidates will not be able to ignore the largest, most diverse state in the nation as they seek our country's highest office," California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said at the time, according to NPR. “California has been a leader time and time again on the most important issues facing our country — including immigration, education, and the environment.”
He added that the date change would “help ensure that issues important to Californians are prioritized by presidential candidates from all political parties."
Last year, state Democratic Party spokesman Roger Salazar told Fox News that the earlier primary would also help California pull the national party in a more progressive direction.
“The Democratic electorate [in California] is much more progressive than almost any state,” Salazar said at the time. “All of that is going to help bring up some of the core issues Californians care about.”
He listed the environment, health care, immigration and economic injustice as top issues among California Democrats.
That may explain why progressive candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., leads in four major California polls, according to Politico.
Ironically, Waters’ remarks about the “tremendous dollars” being donated by Californians come amid a primary battle in which some of the party faithful are accusing New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg of trying to “buy” the nomination.
Since the start of 2020, the former mayor of New York City has spent $13 million on advertising in California and opened 20 regional offices with a total of 300 staffers, Politico reported.
Bloomberg also got a head start on other candidates in California by spending time there earlier this month, after deciding to skip the Iowa and New Hampshire races.
As for who is taking the most money from California, that title belongs to former South Bend, Ind., Pete Buttigieg, who has raised more than $9 million in the state, according to Federal Election Commission data, the outlet reported.