Citing no evidence, Trump says he’s seen information that coronavirus originated in a Wuhan lab

Without citing any evidence, President Trump said he’s seen information that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. When pressed by a reporter to back up his claim, Trump said he wasn’t at liberty to do so.

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Assault allegation puts Joe Biden — and the Democratic Party — in a bind

Joe Biden has tried to move past an allegation that he assaulted a female staffer decades ago by not talking about it. It isn't working. Some Democrats worry the story line will fester into a much bigger problem for him and the party if he keeps ignoring it.

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American plans to shrink, says no hubs will close: 'No way to overstate the gravity of this situation'

The airline is retiring more than 100 jets earlier than planned and says more may be ahead as it grapples with a dearth of passengers.

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Fauci says leak concerns fueled his White House revelation of Gilead drug results

Concerns over leaks compelled the top U.S. infectious disease official to reveal data on Gilead Sciences Inc’s experimental drug remdesivir, the first in a scientifically rigorous clinical trial to show benefit in treating COVID-19. The dramatic announcement by Dr Anthony Fauci in the Oval Office on Wednesday prompted concerns among scientists that the Trump administration was raising hopes about a coronavirus treatment before sharing the full data with researchers. As a cautionary example of inflating the potential value of a therapy, some pointed to President Donald Trump’s repeated endorsements of malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, with no evidence that it works.

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Fox News' Judge Napolitano wants Trump to pardon Flynn after FBI allegedly tried to 'get him fired'

One of President Trump's biggest Fox News skeptics is on his side for this one.Documents unsealed late Wednesday in the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn raise questions about whether the FBI "set out to entrap" him in an interview with the agency, Fox News' judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano declared to Fox & Friends on Thursday. "Anybody who believes in the rule of law ... should be utterly scandalized and outraged" by what the documents reveal, and Trump should pardon Flynn "in the next day or so," Napolitano continued."This is a classic case of the FBI setting out to entrap someone and reducing it to writing," Napolitano incredulously said. He called for the Department of Justice to apologize to Flynn before the judge overseeing his case, denounce the FBI's actions, and both ask the judge to "vacate" Flynn's guilty plea and "dismiss" the indictment against him. And if it doesn't, Trump should quickly move to pardon him, Napolitano said.> Fox's Andrew Napolitano calls for Trump to pardon Michael Flynn "within the next day or so," unless the DOJ first denounces Flynn's prosecution, apologizes to him, and asks the judge to vacate his guilty plea and dismiss the indictment. pic.twitter.com/ycJcViHGSA> > — Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) April 30, 2020The documents reveal former FBI counterintelligence division Bill Priestap questioned "our goal" in a note written just days after Flynn lied about conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. at the time. "Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" Priestap wrote.Napolitano has frequently criticized Trump in the past, siding with those who wanted to impeach the president in saying he'd committed several crimes, including obstruction of justice.More stories from theweek.com Trump's 'mission accomplished' moment Gun-toting protesters' dramatic stand inside Michigan's statehouse, in 5 photos and videos The Justice Department is apparently working with conservative Christian groups to fight COVID-19 policies

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Venezuela refuses to withdraw diplomats from Brazil

Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro's government stepped up a diplomatic spat with neighbor Brazil on Thursday, accusing it of putting Venezuelan diplomats under "undue pressure" to leave the country within 48 hours. Brazil is one of around 60 countries to recognize Maduro's opposition rival Juan Guaido as Venezuela's acting president and announced on March 5 it was ordering Maduro-appointed diplomats to withdraw. The foreign ministry in Caracas accused Brazil of "attempting to force the premature departure of Venezuelan diplomatic and consular staff by May 2," and said no talks had taken place over the exit.

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US intelligence community says it concurs with the 'wide scientific consensus' that the coronavirus was not 'man-made or genetically modified'

The announcement comes after weeks of speculation in the right-wing and far-right media that the coronavirus was created in a Wuhan lab.

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Coronavirus: Armed protesters enter Michigan statehouse

Several senators reportedly wore bulletproof vests as armed demonstrators looked on from the gallery.

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Nigerian drummer Tony Allen dies aged 79

Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, who created Afrobeat with Fela Kuti, dies in Paris aged 79, his manager says

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Senate Democrat says Republican leader's plan to resume work puts lives in danger

A U.S. Senate Democrat on Wednesday accused Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of endangering the lives of Senate staff if he brings them back to work next week without effective safeguards against coronavirus infection in place. Senator Chris Van Hollen, whose state of Maryland contains several suburbs of Washington where federal workers live, said he had written to McConnell to demand details of how staff will be protected when the Senate returns to session on Monday. "I am ready to see senators resume work in the Capitol, but without effective safeguards in place, Mitch McConnell is endangering the lives of the staff who work there – including many of my constituents – and undermining regional efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus," Van Hollen said in a statement.

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One dead, five missing after Canadian helicopter goes missing during NATO exercise

Canadian prime Minister Jusin Trudeau has confirmed that one man has died and five others are missing after a Canadian military helicopter went missing during a NATO operation. Debris and the aircraft's black box have been found in the sea between Greece and Italy, a Greek military officer and public television said Thursday. Canada's armed forces said the helicopter had been involved in an accident after taking off from the Canadian frigate Fredericton on Wednesday. "Debris has been found in Italy's zone of control and intervention" in the Ionian Sea, the Greek military officer told AFP, specifying the wreckage belonged to the Canadian helicopter. Six crew were aboard the helicopter when it disappeared, the officer said on condition of anonymity. Greek public television reported that a body had been found amid the wreckage in international waters off the Greek island of Kefalonia. Greek public television ERT said Italian and NATO vessels were also taking part in the search while Turkey said one of its frigates was also involved. Canada said on Twitter that it contacted the family members of those who were on board the missing CH-148 Cyclone helicopter.

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Philippines rejects China's territorial label on island

The Philippines protested on Thursday China’s designation of a disputed South China Sea reef, which it has turned into a heavily fortified island base, as a Chinese “administrative center.” The Department of Foreign Affairs issued a statement objecting to what it called China’s “illegal designation” of Fiery Cross Reef as a regional administrative center in the hotly contested Spratly archipelago. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China last week of taking advantage of widespread distraction over the pandemic to advance its territorial claims.

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Cuban embassy in Washington struck by gunfire, suspect arrested

A man armed with a high-powered assault rifle fired multiple rounds at the Cuban embassy in Washington early Thursday, authorities said, damaging the building but without causing any injuries. Police arrested the suspect, identified as 42-year-old Alexander Alazo of Aubrey, Texas. "This morning at approximately 2:15 am, US Secret Service officers responded to the Embassy of Cuba following reports of shots fired," the Secret Service said in a statement.

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‘Women’s Groups’ Sat on Letter Urging Biden to Address Reade Allegation after Campaign Intervened

A coalition of national women's advocacy groups drafted a letter urging Joe Biden to address sexual-assault claims by former staffer Tara Reade, but decided against releasing the letter publicly after the Biden campaign learned of the efforts, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.Instead, the unspecified groups decided to work with Biden advisers to try to pressure the campaign to address the allegations before the end of April, which is designated Sexual Assault Awareness Month.“Vice President Biden has the opportunity, right now, to model how to take serious allegations seriously,” the letter read. “The weight of our expectations matches the magnitude of the office he seeks.”As of April 30, a campaign spokesman has denied the allegations but Biden himself has not spoken about them on the record. The campaign circulated talking points to surrogates advising them to say the alleged incident with Reade “did not happen,” BuzzFeed reported on Tuesday.“It’s difficult for survivors to see that a woman who has more corroborating sources than most survivors have in similar situations is being tossed aside and actively being weaponized by cynical political actors,” Shaunna Thomas, a founder of women's rights advocacy group UltraViolet, which is involved in discussions with the Biden campaign regarding Reade's allegations, told the Times.The Times itself edited a story on Reade's allegation after the campaign complained. Initially, the report included the sentence, “The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.” The paper subsequently deleted the second half of the sentence.“Even though a lot of us, including me, had looked at it before the story went into the paper, I think that the campaign thought that the phrasing was awkward and made it look like there were other instances in which he had been accused of sexual misconduct, and that’s not what the sentence was intended to say,” Times executive editor Dean Baquet said.As media attention has become more focused on Reade, calls have grown over the past week to release Biden's Senate archive, currently held at the University of Delaware, which may offer new details that shed light on the allegations. Seven members of the university's Board of Trustees, including its chairman, have donated to the Biden campaign and affiliated PAC's.

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Inmates at Parchman's Unit 29 describe life inside notorious cellblock

Four inmates at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman spoke to CBS News in recent days, expressing frustration as they wait to be relocated from the state's oldest prison.

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A NYC coronavirus patient died after inexperienced medical residents set her ventilator too high and it stopped her heart

The incident happened at Montefiore hospital in the Bronx in March, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

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Satellite images reveal Kim Jong-un may be at luxury family villa

New satellite images showing the recent movements of luxury boats by Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, have provided further indications that he may be ensconced in his seaside villa in Wonsan, on the country’s east coast. The location of the reclusive leader has been a mystery since his unprecedented no-show at April 15 events to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung. His absence, for the first time since he took power in 2011, unleashed a torrent of speculation about his health conditions, with unverified and conflicting reports claiming he was both recuperating from cardiovascular surgery and in “grave danger.” On Tuesday, commercial satellite imagery obtained by North Korea-monitoring website NK PRO showed boats often used by Kim had made movements in patterns that suggested he or his entourage may be in the Wonsan area. “Extensive analysis shows that similar leisure boat movements at an exclusive villa in Wonsan and a nearby island near the Kalma peninsula have aligned with Kim’s public appearances in the area in every one of a half-dozen instances since last summer, and many more dating back to 2013,” it said. The imagery adds to earlier satellite pictures studied by the Washington-based North Korea monitoring project 38 North, which appeared to show that a train similar to Kim’s was parked in the resort’s so-called “leadership station” reserved for the use of the Kim family a week ago.

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Pompeo criticizes S.Africa, Qatar for taking Cuban doctors

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday criticized South Africa and Qatar for accepting doctors from Cuba to battle the coronavirus, accusing the communist island of profiting from the pandemic. Cuba's globe-trotting doctors have long been a source of diplomatic soft power and pride for Havana, but Washington says the medical workers only benefit the government and has encouraged them to defect. "We've noticed how the regime in Havana has taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to continue its exploitation of Cuban medical workers," Pompeo told reporters.

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Most of U.S. House urges more diplomacy at U.N. to renew Iran arms embargo: sources

Nearly 90% of U.S. House of Representatives members have signed a letter urging the Trump administration to increase its diplomatic action at the United Nations to renew an arms embargo on Iran, congressional sources said on Thursday. In a rare show of bipartisanship, at least 382 of the 429 members of the Democratic-controlled House - Democrats and Republicans - have signed the letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to work with U.S. allies and partners to extend the embargo, as well as U.N. travel restrictions on Iranians involved with arms proliferation. "The U.N. arms embargo is set to expire in October, and we are concerned that the ban's expiration will lead to more states buying and selling weapons to and from Iran," said the letter, seen by Reuters and led by Representatives Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Mike McCaul, the committee's top Republican.

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80,000 cruise workers are still stuck aboard ships in US waters. Staff members say it's 'embarrassing' they're not allowed to disembark.

Up to 80,000 crew members are stuck on 120 cruise ships on US waters, and it's unclear when they'll touch land again.

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30 Easy Side Dishes For Lasagna

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FDA reportedly plans to authorize emergency use of largely untested drug to treat coronavirus

The Food and Drug Administration will authorize the emergency use of the antiviral remdesivir on COVID-19 patients as soon as Wednesday, a senior administration official told The New York Times. Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences revealed promising study results involving remdesivir on Wednesday, but the FDA's reported move would still sidestep the usual testing required to authorize a drug's usage.Gilead said Wednesday that its own trial, as well one overseen by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, met its goals. Of the study's 397 severe COVID-19 patients, at least 50 percent of patients treated with a 5-day dosage of remdesivir improved and more than half were discharged from the hospital within two weeks. The overall mortality rate of the study was 7 percent, and relatively few patients developed bad side effects. But the study wasn't evaluated against a control group, and it's unclear if those recoveries were natural or if remdesivir actually had something to do with them. Hard data from the study also hasn't been released yet.Anecdotal reports, including two published in The New England Journal of Medicine, provided more credibility for remdesivir in the coronavirus fight. But they also didn't compared the drug against a placebo. A study published in The Lancet concluded remdesivir was "safe and adequately tolerated" but "did not provide significant benefits over placebo."More stories from theweek.com Trump's 'mission accomplished' moment Gun-toting protesters' dramatic stand inside Michigan's statehouse, in 5 photos and videos The Justice Department is apparently working with conservative Christian groups to fight COVID-19 policies

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Satellite images of luxury boats further suggest North Korea's Kim at favoured villa: experts

Satellite imagery showing recent movements of luxury boats often used by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his entourage near Wonsan provide further indications he has been at the coastal resort, according to experts who monitor the reclusive regime. Speculation about Kim's health and location erupted after his unprecedented absence from April 15 celebrations to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. On Tuesday, North Korea-monitoring website NK PRO reported commercial satellite imagery showed boats often used by Kim had made movements in patterns that suggested he or his entourage may be in the Wonsan area.

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Coronavirus kills 70 veterans at Massachusetts care home

Officials are investigating if residents received proper medical care at the Massachusetts home.

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Irrfan Khan: The Bollywood star loved by Hollywood

Irrfan Khan's biographer, Aseem Chhabra, writes about the life of one of Bollywood's biggest stars.

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Coronavirus: Searching for truth behind Spain's care home tragedy

Families want to know why so many of their elderly relatives have died.

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Coronavirus: Japan's low testing rate raises questions

Japan's relatively low rate of virus testing raises questions about how it has tackled the pandemic.

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Training AI 'to translate mum's phone messages'

How African researchers are using the continent's languages to help spur innovation in Artificial Intelligence.

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Staging a 'socially distanced' boxing match

Inside the Nicaraguan boxing event that caught the world's attention during the pandemic.

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Coronavirus: Why the fashion industry faces an 'existential crisis'

"No-one wants to buy clothes to sit at home in," as Next's chief executive Simon Wolfson puts it.

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Coronavirus: Why so many US nurses are out of work

At a time when many healthcare workers are risking their lives, some face pay cuts and job loss.

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How will airlines get flying again?

When passenger planes start flying again, the world of air travel will be very different.

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In a Philippine lockdown, priests bring church to the community

Catholic priest Eduardo "Ponpon" Vasquez has worn a hazmat suit more than a vestment this past month. The Philippines has recorded over 8,200 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, of which more than 550 have died.

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Kentucky's governor apologized to a man named Tupac Shakur after he accused him of using a fake name to file for unemployment

Gov. Andy Beshear called out a man named Tupac Shakur as using a fake name to reap state benefits, but Shakur is a real person living in Kentucky.

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Coronavirus: What African countries are doing to help people to eat amid the lockdowns

What African countries are doing to help people to eat amid the lockdowns.

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Coronavirus cases aboard 2nd Navy ship still rising, now 64

The number of coronavirus cases aboard the USS Kidd rose to 64 as the Navy destroyer pulled into port at San Diego on Tuesday to get medical care for the crew and to disinfect and decontaminate the ship. The Kidd is the second Navy ship to have an outbreak of the disease while at sea, the other being the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier that has been docked at Guam for a month. The Roosevelt has more than 900 sailors with confirmed cases of COVID-19, but the entire crew has now been tested.

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New York City Mayor de Blasio singles out the city's Jewish community for flouting coronavirus rules and said cops will start arresting people gathered in large groups

Though some members of the Hasidic community have disregarded lockdown rules, New York's large Jewish population has followed coronavirus measures.

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FDA reportedly plans to authorize emergency use of largely untested drug to treat coronavirus

The Food and Drug Administration will authorize the emergency use of the antiviral remdesivir on COVID-19 patients as soon as Wednesday, a senior administration official told The New York Times. Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences revealed promising study results involving remdesivir on Wednesday, but the FDA's reported move would still sidestep the usual testing required to authorize a drug's usage.Gilead said Wednesday that its own trial, as well one overseen by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, met its goals. Of the study's 397 severe COVID-19 patients, at least 50 percent of patients treated with a 5-day dosage of remdesivir improved and more than half were discharged from the hospital within two weeks. The overall mortality rate of the study was 7 percent, and relatively few patients developed bad side effects. But the study wasn't evaluated against a control group, and it's unclear if those recoveries were natural or if remdesivir actually had something to do with them. Hard data from the study also hasn't been released yet.Anecdotal reports, including two published in The New England Journal of Medicine, provided more credibility for remdesivir in the coronavirus fight. But they also didn't compared the drug against a placebo. A study published in The Lancet concluded remdesivir was "safe and adequately tolerated" but "did not provide significant benefits over placebo."More stories from theweek.com How Tara Reade's allegations could bring down Joe Biden The perils of Hooverism Florida's health department reportedly told medical examiners to remove causes of death from mortality data

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New Zealand health official claims 'elimination' of coronavirus as new cases hit single digits

New Zealand's top health official said that the country has "achieved our goal of elimination" of coronavirus as the country eased its lockdown.

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US 'hasn't seen' North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently, Mike Pompeo

The US secretary of state's comments come after speculation the North Korean leader might be ill.

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The U.S. and Iran Are Headed for a New Proxy War in Afghanistan

KARACHI—While the United States military and the White House are girding for a confrontation with Iran on the high seas or in Iraq, Afghanistan is an even more likely battleground.U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted last week, "I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea." The tweet followed the dangerous maneuvers on April 15 by Iranian naval vessels near U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. The leader of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) promised a “crushing response” to any such action.The incident and the threats that followed show that even if most of the world’s attention is focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a devastating impact on both Iran and the United States, the symptoms of a war in the making grow stronger by the day.Almost forgotten by the general public is the rocket attack on Camp Taji in Iraq last month that killed two American soldiers and one British serviceman. The camp hosts anti-ISIS coalition troops and NATO personnel. On the ground, the U.S retaliatory strikes against weapons storage sites in Iraq belonging to the pro-Iranian militia Kata'ib Hezbollah kept the war-fever high.On April 1, Trump said Iran was planning to attack American troops in Iraq."Upon information and belief,” he tweeted, echoing FBI legalese, “Iran or its proxies are planning a sneak attack on U.S. troops and/or assets in Iraq. If this happens, Iran will pay a very heavy price, indeed!"But Americans are even more vulnerable in Afghanistan, and it is likely to be the favored theater for Iran’s proxy attacks on U.S. personnel for several reasons.Trump, Afghanistan, and ‘The Tweet of Damocles’One of the first is that the head of the IRGC’s Quds Force, General Ismail Qaani, has experience there dating back almost a quarter of a century. The Quds Force spearheads Iran’s operations outside its borders, most often by training and organizing militias which are used in combat, covert ops, and terrorist activities to support Iran’s regional objectives. These include the influence, subversion, intimidation, or control of potentially hostile neighbors and the expulsion of outside forces.For years, the head of the Quds Force was Gen. Qassem Soleimani, known for his high-profile activities in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—and his cult of personality inside Iran itself. When he was blown away by an American drone while on a visit to Baghdad in early January, Trump gloated, “He should have been taken out many years ago!”Qaani was appointed immediately to succeed Soleimani, whom he had served as deputy commander since the late 1990s. But while Soleimani had focused mainly on the countries to the west of Iran, Qaani worked on those to the east, especially Afghanistan.Today, Qaani is unlikely to miss the opportunity to strike the U.S. at such a vulnerable point. The Americans are currently battling to salvage the peace deal with the Afghan Taliban that would give Trump an exit from the “endless war” there before the U.S. elections in November. But the Taliban already have warned that the peace deal announced in February is near the breaking point. Iran does not have to push too hard to shatter the agreement amid growing violence and bitter differences between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Qaani, appointed as the deputy commander of the Quds Force in 1997, worked to back the Northern Alliance in the civil war against the Taliban in the 1990s at a time when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was trying to work with Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud as well. Al Qaeda’s murder of Massoud two days before its September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States turned all these relationships upside down. It’s not clear what role Qaani or Soleimani played at a time when Iran was cooperating with Washington to try to stabilize the Afghan situation in late 2001, but after then-President George W. Bush declared in early 2002 that Iran was part of the “Axis of Evil,” diplomatic rapprochement came to an end, and covert action, if it ever subsided, was renewed.More recently, Qaani made some trips to Afghanistan when the Liwa Fatemiyoun, sometimes known as the Fatemiyoun Brigade or Afghan Hezbollah, were at their height in 2018. Organized four years earlier, they were deployed by Iran to fight in the Syria war supporting Tehran’s ally Bashar al-Assad. Qaani visited Kabul in 2018 and held talks with Afghan government leaders President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, formerly of the Northern Alliance.Following the signing of the peace accord forged in Doha, Qatar, the U.S. has struggled to push the peace process forward. The U.S. and NATO allies agreed to withdraw all troops within 14 months in return for security assurances by the Taliban that Afghanistan would not be allowed to become a launching pad for global terrorist attacks. The U.S. has to reduce its forces in Afghanistan from about 13,000 to 8,600 within the first 135 days of the accord, but as the New York Times reported last month, that schedule has been complicated by coronavirus and quarantine concerns.On its face, the Quds Force-Taliban relationship is complicated given Iran’s previous backing for the Northern Alliance, but that was a long time ago, and ever since 9/11 Afghanistan has seen changing client and proxy relationships, some of them public, some not.“An open alliance between Iran and the Taliban would surely be viewed as a betrayal by many Afghans, even if shifting alliances is the nature of Afghanistan,” Sam Hendricks of the Lowy Institute in Sydney told The Daily Beast.“On the whole,” Hendricks said, “Iran has been remarkably restrained in its dealings in Afghanistan since 2001—and its own betrayal by the U.S. after Iranian support in defeating the Taliban and convening the Bonn process [to build a stable government], soon after which it was labeled part of the Axis of Evil.”Now, said Hendricks, Iran “seems to have an opportunity to strike the U.S. at a very vulnerable point.” Among Qaani’s tools are the thousands of fighters from the battle hardened Liwa Fatemiyoun, made up mainly of members of Afghanistan’s Shi’ite Hazara minority, in addition to any tacit or covert cooperation with the Taliban themselves.More than in Iraq, more than in the waters of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, Iran is positioned in its eastern neighbor to make the Americans suffer as they try to extract themselves. The only real question is whether Iran wants them out of Afghanistan sooner or later.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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Shipping tycoon defends Venezuela gas delivery amid shortage

A controversial shipping magnate supplying gasoline to his native Venezuela said he will do whatever it takes to prevent worsening fuel shortages from igniting a social explosion that he warns could be worse than anything caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the South American country. Wilmer Ruperti gave his first interview in years after The Associated Press reported earlier this month that his company, Maroil Trading Inc., was buying gasoline that most companies are refusing to sell to the bankrupt, heavily sanctioned socialist country. “This isn't about my business,” Ruperti told AP at his modernist hilltop mansion overlooking Caracas.

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Pakistan prepares to ease coronavirus curbs with infections below projections

Pakistan is preparing to loosen coronavirus lockdown restrictions as the number of infections and deaths are well below previous projections, officials said on Wednesday. The South Asian nation, which has registered more than 15,000 cases of COVID-19 including 335 deaths, has already granted exemptions to dozens of sectors to open up over the last few days. “The mortality numbers are nowhere near the same as we see in other countries,” Planning Minister Asad Umar, who oversees the response to the virus, told journalists.

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Mnuchin blasts Lakers for taking PPP loan, says every company receiving over $2 million will get a 'full audit'

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers, but he's adamant he doesn't support the NBA's second most valuable franchise taking a $4.6 million loan as part of the federal government's Paycheck Protection Program, which is meant for small businesses.The Lakers gave the money back, which Mnuchin appreciated, but during a Tuesday appearance on CNBC, the secretary said it was "unfortunate" and "inappropriate" for large companies to take the money, especially because the fund ran out so quickly. The Lakers were not the only large business that initially received loans.> It was “outrageous” that the LA Lakers took a $4.6 million PPP loan, Treasury Sec. Mnuchin says. “I’m glad they’ve returned it.” https://t.co/snISVRyg5z pic.twitter.com/RImnCrGpXG> > — CNBC (@CNBC) April 28, 2020He said the fault lies with the recipients, not the banks who doled out the cash, but the government is going to change things going forward. "We're going to do a full audit of every loan over $2 million," Mnuchin said. "This was a program designed for small businesses. It was not a program that was designed for public companies that had liquidity." Read more at CNBC.More stories from theweek.com Scientists are perplexed by the low rate of coronavirus hospitalizations among smokers. Nicotine may hold the answer. How Tara Reade's allegations could bring down Joe Biden AMC says it will no longer show Universal Pictures films because of Trolls World Tour move

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'Crazy beast' lived among last of dinosaurs

The discovery that the badger-like animal lived alongside dinosaurs challenges ideas about mammals.

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Trump Says U.S. Will Run 5 Million Daily Virus Tests 'Very Soon.' His Testing Chief Says That's Impossible

President Trump says the U.S. will be able to carry out five million coronavirus tests a day. The official overseeing testing strategy tells TIME that goal isn't feasible

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McConnell to Move Quickly on Confirming His 38-Year-Old Protégé to the Bench

When the U.S. Senate returns from a lengthy absence next week, one of its first orders of business will be advancing the nomination of a 38-year-old ally of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to the second highest court in the land. According to two Democratic aides, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is expected to schedule a committee hearing for May 6 for Justin Walker, a federal judge in Kentucky whom President Trump has nominated to the influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. McConnell announced on Monday that the Senate would return to session on May 4 for its first full week of legislative business after the CARES Act passed in late March. And he has not been shy about his desire to start confirming judges as soon as his chamber is back in session. “I haven’t seen anything that would discourage me from doing that. And as soon as we get back in session, we’ll start confirming judges again,” he told Hugh Hewitt in a recent interview. McConnell’s office had no comment. Graham’s office did not return a request for comment. Mitch McConnell Turned the Courts Conservative—and Democrats Helped HimWalker is a McConnell protégé who has close ties to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and played a high-profile role defending him during his contentious confirmation hearings. Walker moved up the ranks of conservative legal circles before landing a judgeship on the United States District Court of the Western District of Kentucky. There, his record has been distinguished by conservative jurisprudence and a flair for unorthodox rulings. “On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter,” Walker wrote in ruling against ordinances restricting attendance at religious services do to the coronavirus pandemic, “that sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion.”Walker’s lack of experience and partisan background has earned him “not qualified” ratings from the American Bar Association and the opposition of Democrats, who see his nomination as a thinly veiled attempt to place young ideological allies in key judicial positions. “If Graham/McConnell go forward with this, it would show that Senate Rs are rushing the Senate back to confirm an unqualified, anti-health care judge instead of responding to the pandemic and conducting oversight,” said a Senate Democratic aide.McConnell and Kavanaugh attended Walker’s swearing-in on March 13 in Louisville. There, the majority leader and Walker, his former intern, praised each other effusively in public remarks.In his Monday announcement on the May 4 return, McConnell said the Senate “must focus on concrete steps to strengthen our response to this complex crisis,” adding that lawmakers “cannot get distracted by pre-existing partisan wish-lists.”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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Spain Reports Slight Increase in Virus Deaths as Easing Starts

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El Salvador gangs: 'No ray of sunlight for inmates'

El Salvador, already criticised by rights groups, cracks down further on imprisoned gang members.

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Retired Republican Senator Jeff Flake will vote for Biden over Trump and says GOP needs 'a sound defeat' in 2020 election

Retired Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona will not be voting for Donald Trump this November. No, he'll be voting for a Democrat for president for the first time in his life."This won’t be the first time I’ve voted for a Democrat — though not for president [before]. Last time I voted for a third-party candidate. ... But I will not vote for Donald Trump," Mr Flake said in an interview with The Washington Post.

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Australia rejects Chinese 'economic coercion' threat amid planned coronavirus probe

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne has cautioned China against attempts at "economic coercion" as Australia pushes for an investigation into the coronavirus pandemic that China opposes. Chinese ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, said in a newspaper interview on Monday the "Chinese public" could avoid Australian products and universities. Australia last week called for all members of the World Health Organization (WHO) to support an independent review into the origins and spread of the coronavirus, and is lobbying world leaders.

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German doctors are nakedly protesting PPE shortages to show how vulnerable they are without protection

One of the doctors, named Ruben Bernau, told a German magazine for doctors: "The nudity is a symbol of how vulnerable we are without protection."

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Supreme Court Dismisses NYC Gun Rights Case; Conservative Justices Dissent

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a case brought by three New York City handgun owners challenging a city regulation that prohibited gun owners from transporting their firearms outside the city.The court agreed to hear the case in December, but the city then amended the regulation to allow gun owners to bring firearms to other locations. The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 in an unsigned opinion that the case was moot because the city had amended its original regulation.Conservative justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch wrote in their dissent that the case should not have been dismissed."By incorrectly dismissing this case as moot, the Court permits our docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced," the justices wrote. Lawyers for the plaintiffs had argued that the case should not be dismissed because the city changed its regulation due to fears that the Supreme Court would use the case to restrict broader gun control measures.Gun rights advocates had initially hoped the court's conservative majority would tip the case in their favor."I believe it will change the way the Second Amendment is applied to everyone who owns a gun in the country," Romolo Colantone, a resident of Staten Island and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in December 2019.

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With Welfare Repayment Looming, Net1 Seeks Bankruptcy Protection For Unit

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The South Korean government says it's 'aware of Kim Jong Un's location'

It was one of South Korea's most unequivocal statements yet, after roughly two weeks of downplaying rumors about the North Korean leader's health.

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A 101-year-old woman who was born during the Spanish flu survived COVID-19

Angelina Friedman, a resident at North Westchester Restorative Therapy and Nursing Center in New York state, turns 102 this year.

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Oxford researchers have reportedly received promising news about their coronavirus vaccine

The University of Oxford's Jenner Institute made waves last week when U.K. Health Minister Matt Hancock announced a team is starting trials on a potential coronavirus vaccine of which there could be a million doses by September, which is, in vaccine terms, incredibly fast. There's still a long way to go before determining if the vaccine is viable, but The New York Times reports there's promising news that it may be both safe and effective.Scientists at the National Institute of Health's Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana tested the Oxford vaccine on six rhesus macaques monkeys. The monkeys were exposed to heavy quantities of the coronavirus, an amount that had previously sickened other monkeys in the lab, before receiving a single dose of the vaccine. More than four weeks later all six monkeys were healthy, Dr. Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test, told the Times. That doesn't mean it will work the same way in humans, but Munster noted the rhesus macaque is "pretty much the closest thing we have to humans," so the results are at least promising.One thing that could hold trials back, however, is if other measures to curb the pandemic, such as social distancing, work too well, the Times reports. In order to get a real sense of a vaccine's efficacy, tests need to be conducted in places where the virus is spreading swiftly. Read more at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com Scientists are perplexed by the low rate of coronavirus hospitalizations among smokers. Nicotine may hold the answer. Movies that debut on streaming and not in theaters can be eligible for the Oscars next year How Democrats blew up MeToo

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Australia asks China to explain 'economic coercion' threat in coronavirus row

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Supreme Court Scraps Gun Case After New York Changes Law

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Trump news: President denies responsibility for people drinking bleach to fight coronavirus as tweetstorm branded ‘indecent and obscene’

As the number of US coronavirus cases climbs above 1 million and the nation's death toll surpasses deaths from the Vietnam War, Donald Trump claims the country is "very close" to testing 5 million people daily, as he continues to pressure states and local governments to begin "reopening" as the economy flounders.The president also suggested during a briefing on Tuesday that states with financial deficits could be forced to give undocumented people in custody over to federal immigration authorities if they want financial relief in the wake of the public health crisis.

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South Korean official says Kim Jong Un may be avoiding public due to 'coronavirus concerns'

South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said Kim's absence was not "particularly unusual" in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Kim Jong Un 'alive and well,' South Korean official says amid new reports North Korean leader is ill

Speculation about Kim's health began to swirl after the North Korea leader failed to attend the April 15 celebration of his grandfather's birthday.

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Coronavirus: What African countries are doing to help people to eat amid the lockdowns

What African countries are doing to help people to eat amid the lockdowns.

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Trump ‘can't imagine why’ there are increased reports of people misusing disinfectants

President Trump on Monday said he "can't imagine why" there have been more reports of people misusing disinfectants after his comments on the subject last week.

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COVID-19 and gun violence: Mayors fight double health crisis

Everytown for Gun Safety offers new guidelines for mayors struggling with a "perfect storm"

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Reversing course, House won't return to D.C. next week because of coronavirus threat

"We made a judgment that we will not come back next week," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said in a phone call with reporters.

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