Source: Associated Press

By GENE JOHNSON, RACHEL LA CORTE and MARTHA BELLISLE
15 minutes ago

SEATTLE (AP) — Federal authorities announced an investigation of the Seattle-area nursing home at the center of an outbreak of the new coronavirus as the U.S. death toll climbed to 11, including the first fatality outside Washington state.

Officials in California’s Placer County, near Sacramento, said Wednesday an elderly person who tested positive after returning from a San Francisco-to-Mexico cruise had died. The victim had underlying health problems, authorities said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom late Wednesday declared a statewide emergency due to coronavirus. Washington and Florida had already declared emergencies, and Hawaii also joined them Wednesday.

Washington also announced another death, bringing its total to 10. Most of those who died were residents of Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, a suburb east of Seattle. At least 39 cases have been reported in the Seattle area, where researchers say the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks. Vice President Mike Pence was expected to meet with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee near Olympia on Thursday.

Seema Verma, head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the agency is sending inspectors to Life Care along with experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to figure out what happened and determine whether the nursing home followed guidelines for preventing infections.

Read more: https://apnews.com/8a9f6fd50731fd4c63edb2b5f0e568f8

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Hey Seema Verma, you are sending CDC people to see if the home followed guidelines....................your fucking administration is more worried about the stock market and gagging any health officials with any acts of transparency......................and you want to know if the nursing home folowed procedures....................can you Seema Vrema tell the american public what those guidelines are.....................

Have you been into Costco lately they are only allowing five cases of water, they are selling out on disinfected wipes...................

Source: Associated Press

By STAN CHOE 6 minutes ago


NEW YORK (AP) — And back down goes the U.S. stock market.

The S&P 500 sank more than 2% in early trading Thursday as the market swung back to fear about the effects of a fast-spreading virus in its latest yo-yo move. Just a day earlier, the index had soared 4.2%, in part on hopes that more aggressive moves by governments and central banks around the world could help contain the economic fallout.

Get used to such vicious swings, which will likely keep going as long as the number of new infections continues to accelerate, many analysts and professional investors say. The S&P 500 has had four straight days where it has lurched by at least 2% in either direction, something that hasn’t happened since since 2011.

In China, where the number of new infections has been slowing drastically, Shanghai-traded stocks have rallied nearly 12% since hitting a bottom on Feb. 3. They’re just 1.6% away from wiping out the last of the losses they’ve sustained since the new virus began to spread late last year.

Factories in China are gradually reopening, and a return to a sense of normal life may even be on the horizon following swift and severe actions by the government to corral the virus.

Read more: https://apnews.com/67a5f1559c0c052ea43a9f775204b596

By Cristina Cabrera
|
March 5, 2020 9:39 a.m.

On Wednesday night, 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) expressed support for progressive rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and hinted at considering her for a post in his administration were he to win the race.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow held an interview with Sanders, during which she brought up the Washington Post’s report on the contacts between his surrogates and that of Warren’s after the Massachusetts senator suffered a devastating Super Tuesday.

Sanders confirmed that he had spoken to Warren and had a “very cordial discussion” with her earlier on Wednesday, but declined to provide details.

“It was a private conversation,” he said. “But I think Senator Warren has worked really hard over the last year.”

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/bernie-sanders-praise-warren-appoint-administration-post

Even Republican administrations before Trump found ways to enforce the Voting Rights Act.

By Tierney Sneed
|
March 5, 2020 9:32 a.m.

The apparent refusal of President Trump’s Justice Department to engage in any meaningful, public enforcement of the Voting Rights Act has taken Republicans’ general hostility to the law to a whole new level.


The DOJ has not filed a single new Voting Rights Act case since the Trump administration took over — setting it apart from the last several administrations, Republican and Democratic.

While it did some litigating of cases under other election laws in the first half of the administration, the Justice Department’s Voting Section has not brought any new cases since 2018.

The current dry spell in DOJ voting rights enforcement is unprecedented, according to the DOJ’s own public record and what former voting section officials told TPM.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trumps-doj-has-not-filed-a-single-new-voting-rights-act-case

By Emily Singer -March 5, 2020 9:53 AM

Trump spread harmful misinformation about the coronavirus on Sean Hannity's show Wednesday night.

Donald Trump on Wednesday night ignored or dismissed facts about the coronavirus, and cast doubt on the global death rate of people suffering from the virus provided by health experts.

In an interview with his friend and Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump said the 3.4% death rate the World Health Organization has calculated is "really a false number" — a claim he made based not on facts but his own "hunch."

"We have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by sitting around, even going to work. Some of them go to work, but they get better," Trump told Hannity.

"And then when you do have a death like you had in the state of Washington, like you had in the state of California, I believe you had one in New York, all of a sudden it seems like 3 or 4%, which seems like a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1%."

https://americanindependent.com/donald-trump-coronavirus-misinformation-death-rate-who-fox-news-sean-hannity/

It cannot be empathized enough................this asshole and his enabling assholes every where are dangerous to human beings...................they have no fucking empathy..................they are all pathological narcissistic malignant psychopathic liars..............................

Politics 3/05/20 4:46am Read time: 2 minute

As usual, media talking heads accidentally "forget" to disclose their own conflicts.
By Susie Madrak

've been waiting for a good time to bring this up, and today's the day. Morning Joe featured Steve Rattner talking about the cost of various Bernie Sanders programs, including Medicare for All, education spending, and the Green New Deal. (Joe Scarborough loves to present himself as a fiscal conservative, so he loves himself some pearl clutching over the budget.)

Now, Steve Rattner was an Obama adviser, and was a major Democratic fundraiser. He started out after college writing about economics and eventually became the New York Times economic reporter. From there, he began working in investment banking and then in private equity. Naturally, he became rich. Unlike a lot of rich people, he seems like a decent guy. He's a calm, rational sort, and I rarely take exception to his views.

But here's the part that really irks me.

Today he's on Morning Joe, criticizing the huge amount of money that Bernie calls for spending.

https://crooksandliars.com/2020/03/so-much-wrong-morning-joes-attack-bernies

2020/3/4 20:48 (EST) 3/4 21:02 (EST)updated

MIAMI — An American Airlines mechanic convicted of sabotaging a navigation system on a Miami flight with 150 passengers aboard was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday after a legal debate over whether he “recklessly” or “intentionally” endangered the safety of the aircraft.

Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, 60, who pleaded guilty in December to tampering with the aircraft before takeoff last summer at Miami International Airport, received the benefit of a “reckless” finding by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke. It was based on an agreement between his defense attorney and federal prosecutors.

Had the judge found that his tampering with the plane’s guidance system was intended to bring it down, Alani could have been sent to prison for two to three times longer under federal sentencing guidelines.

n the end, however, Cooke refused to grant the defendant’s request for 2 1/2 years in prison, saying his tampering — despite a backup in place — might have caused “some unfortunate calamity.” The judge noted that even the mechanic told federal investigators that he wouldn’t have wanted his family to be on that plane after he obstructed one of the aircraft’s two air data module systems with a piece of foam-like material. That, in turn, triggered an error alert on the runway before takeoff so that the pilot could return the plane to the gate for maintenance.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/american-airlines-mechanic-sentenced-to-3-years-for-tampering-with-plane-in-miami/

AS a former aircraft technician ( Airframe & Powerplant rating, with FCC radio endorsement) with over 25 years of flight line and hanger experience on commercial aircraft and on all types.............................this just pisses me off to know end, that someone would do this.......................this and was no fucking excuse........................

Politics 3/05/20 5:55am Read time: 2 minutes

The Florida congresswoman sidesteps the question of whether she's being considered for Joe Biden's VP slot.
By Susie Madrak

It's the silly season again, where the thoughts of talking heads turn to potential VPs. And now that Joe Biden is leading in the delegate count, speculation will be rampant, as this CNN interview with Rep. Val Demings shows:

"All right, Congresswoman. I know I'm not the first person to ask you this and won't be the last, but I trust I'm the one you'll answer here. So what happens if Vice President Biden calls you in a month or two and says, 'Congresswoman, I want you to be my running mate. What's your answer?" John Berman asked.

"John, let me say this. I am endorsing Vice President Biden this morning. I'm very, very excited about that. but he needs to be the nominee. We need to do everything we can to make sure that Vice President Biden is the nominee. So I would just say to you let us keep our eyes on the ball and we will cross that bridge when we get there," Demings said.

"I can't help but notice there wasn't an answer to that question."

https://crooksandliars.com/2020/03/who-me-val-demings-refuses-answer-whether

Note: this is also posted in DP thread

The Florida congresswoman sidesteps the question of whether she's being considered for Joe Biden's VP slot.
By Susie Madrak

Politics 3/05/20 5:55am Read time: 2 minutes

It's the silly season again, where the thoughts of talking heads turn to potential VPs. And now that Joe Biden is leading in the delegate count, speculation will be rampant, as this CNN interview with Rep. Val Demings shows:

"All right, Congresswoman. I know I'm not the first person to ask you this and won't be the last, but I trust I'm the one you'll answer here. So what happens if Vice President Biden calls you in a month or two and says, 'Congresswoman, I want you to be my running mate. What's your answer?" John Berman asked.

"John, let me say this. I am endorsing Vice President Biden this morning. I'm very, very excited about that. but he needs to be the nominee. We need to do everything we can to make sure that Vice President Biden is the nominee. So I would just say to you let us keep our eyes on the ball and we will cross that bridge when we get there," Demings said.

"I can't help but notice there wasn't an answer to that question."

https://crooksandliars.com/2020/03/who-me-val-demings-refuses-answer-whether

Source: Reuters

BUSINESS NEWS MARCH 5, 2020 / 6:51 AM / UPDATED 13 MINUTES AGO


2 MIN READ

(Reuters) - Southwest Airlines Co (LUV.N) said on Thursday it expected a hit of up to $300 million to its first-quarter operating revenue from the coronavirus outbreak, prompting it to cut its quarterly revenue outlook.

Shares of the company fell about 3% premarket, with those of bigger rivals United Airlines Holdings Inc (UAL.O), American Airlines Group Inc (AAL.O) and Delta Airline Holdings (DAL.N) falling about the same.

Southwest said it has seen a significant rise in ticket cancellations and decline in traffic due to the epidemic, which has killed over 3,000 people and caused airlines across the world to cut flights and implement cost controls.

United Airlines on Wednesday suspended its full-year forecast over the outbreak and said it would cut 20% of international flights and 10% of U.S. flights in April as it launched a hiring freeze, voluntary unpaid leaves and delayed salary increases for executives.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southwest/southwest-airlines-sees-first-quarter-revenue-hit-from-coronavirus-outbreak-idUSKBN20S1E9?il=0

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-snip-

and a side note from yesterday, Lufthansa grounded over 150 airplanes because of the virus on some international and domestic routes....................