Iraq’s prime minister-designate announced his withdrawal from the post Sunday night after failing to secure parliamentary support for his Cabinet selection, prolonging the political deadlock in the country amid multiple economic, health and security challenges.Prime Minister designate Mohammed Allawi blamed political parties he did not name, saying they “were not serious about implementing reforms that they promised to the people” and accusing them of placing obstacles in the way of a new and independent government.“If I agreed to offer concessions, I would be prime minister now, but I tried everything possible to save the country from sliding toward the unknown and resolve the current crisis. But the negotiations hit repeated snags,” he said in a short address to the nation, explaining his decision to withdraw. He accused some parties of negotiating “purely for narrow interests.”Allawi’s withdrawal a month after he was selected for the post plunges the country in more uncertainty at a critical time and as the country weathers troubled times, including ongoing anti-government protests and the constant threat of being ensnared by festering U.S.-Iran tensions.Shortly after he spoke, two mortar shells landed in Iraq’s Green Zone where the U.S. Embassy and government offices are located, without causing any injuries, two security officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.Iraq on Sunday marked five months since a popular uprising against the country’s corrupt political class erupted in Baghdad and southern provinces. Iraqis took to the streets in the thousands on Oct. 1 to decry rampant government corruption, unemployment and poor services. Demonstrators rejected Allawi’s candidacy outright, saying he was the choice of the political elite and not the street.Iraq also faces multiple challenges including on the economic and security fronts, and the most recent challenge of containing the coronavirus, with a failing health system and 19 confirmed cases so far.Allawi’s withdrawal came after he twice failed to secure a quorum for parliament to meet to vote on his Cabinet selection.Allawi’s cabinet formation process was beset with political turmoil as opposing factions threatened to withdraw support over the prime minister-designate’s secretive selection of ministers — unusual in the country’s power-sharing system — while in the streets of Baghdad, anti-government protesters camped in a central square for five months said they would reject his authority if early elections weren’t held.An ambitious government program proposed by Allawi that included reforms and anti-corruption measures was criticized by protesters who said it was not enough.He was selected as premier designate on Feb. 1, two months after Adel Abdul-Mahdi, now caretaker prime minister, resigned under pressure from anti-government protests.The weeks leading up to Sunday’s Parliament session was marred by delays and political infighting as Allawi insisted he would select his own ministers — a move that alienated Kurdish and Sunni parties in particular and sparked threats of boycott.With Allawi’s withdrawal, Prime Minister Barham Saleh now has 15 days to appoint a replacement.
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The Trump Administration says it is “ready for anything” to deal with the global outbreak of coronavirus as cases in the United States continue grow.  Last week, the World Health Organization upgraded the risk of COVID-19’s spread to its highest level.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports
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A U.N. investigator is condemning an Eritrean crackdown on fundamental freedoms and religious practice in a new report, as well as the country’s harsh, indefinite military service and widespread abuse.Hopes that Eritrea, which has been accused of human-rights abuses, would institute reforms after it signed a historic peace agreement with Ethiopia in 2018 have not materialized.  If anything, a U.N. report on its human rights situation has found widespread human rights violations, including arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearances, sexual violence and torture.Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea Daniela Kravetz deplores the government’s repression of religious freedom.  She says Christians practicing without government approval are arrested, as are those who belong to nonrecognized Christian congregations.  She says Muslims also are targeted, arrested and jailed.She finds no justification for Eritrea’s failure to reform its compulsory national service.  She says that failure cannot be justified on the grounds that economic conditions in the country do not permit job creation or salary hikes for conscripts.“There are, however, immediate measures that the authorities could take that do not depend on economic reforms, such as stopping the ongoing roundups of youth for forced conscription, separating secondary education from military conscription and putting in place mechanisms to monitor and prevent abuses against conscripts, in particular against female conscripts,” she said. Kravetz is calling for the release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.  She says people are arbitrarily arrested because of their opposition to the government or their beliefs as conscientious objectors.  She says they often are jailed for decades, without any recourse to justice or relief.Eritrean Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Tesfamicael Gerahtu, calls the report politically motivated and ill-intentioned.  He says it portrays his country in a negative light and does not reflect any of its positive achievements.He notes Eritrea is at peace after two decades of conflict.  He says Eritrea is in the process of resolving the many social and economic problems that have arisen during that time but adds there is no quick fix.  
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Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, the easy winner of the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, faces an immediate new challenge from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders when 14 states vote Tuesday in party contests across the country.Biden, in three runs for the presidency, had never won a state primary nominating election until Saturday. But pre-election surveys show that Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist, is handily leading in California, where the most delegates to the party’s mid-summer national presidential nominating convention are at stake in the next round of voting. The polling shows Biden ahead in seven of the states with Tuesday contests, Sanders in six and Sen. Amy Klobuchar in the lead in her home state of Minnesota.”It’s going to be very hard to make up ground in California,” Biden acknowledged Sunday on ABC News’s “This Week.” But he said, “I feel very good where it’s going” in other states, adding that he’s “not even certain” that he will be trailing Sanders in the overall convention delegate count after the Tuesday voting.Biden declared that he can beat Republican President Donald Trump in November’s national election and “bring along [Democratic] candidates and win the Senate” that is now controlled by Republicans.A third of the pledged delegates to the July convention in the Midwestern city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are at stake in the Tuesday voting, when former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s name will appear on the ballots for the first time.Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign event, Feb. 28, 2020, in Columbia, S.C.Sanders said on ABC that Biden “did well” in South Carolina. “We’ll see what happens Tuesday, but we have an excellent chance to win some of the largest states,” he said.Some national Democratic figures have voiced concern that Sanders, who has called for a government-run national health care system and an end to the private insurance plans now used by most Americans to help pay their medical bills, would turn off voters with his left-wing political views and lead to Trump’s re-election to a second White House term.Sanders called Biden “a decent guy” and said that both of them of would support the eventual Democratic nominee against Trump. But Sanders said that he, and not Biden, would bring new voters to the Democratic party to defeat Trump, whom he called “a fraud, a liar who has undermined the democratic process” in Washington.The mounting count of delegates to the national party convention is all important. The state-by-state Democratic primary contests award national convention representation based on the vote counts in the primary elections and caucuses, but candidates only win any delegates if they reach a 15% threshold in a given state.Current projections show Sanders possibly reaching the national convention with a plurality of the delegate votes, but not a majority on the first ballot.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., meets with attendees campaign event, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020, in Spartanburg, S.C.Sanders has argued that if he is close to a majority, the other Democratic  candidates should unite behind his candidacy, while Biden and other presidential aspirants have contended that the convention should then move to a second ballot where superdelegates (mostly party officials and elected Democratic officials) would be allowed to vote, allowing them to possibly deny Sanders the nomination.Bloomberg, whose business information company has made him the 12th richest person in the world, has spent upwards of $400 million of his own money on his campaign. But by choice he skipped the voting in the first four primary contests.Polling shows Bloomberg has some support for the Democratic presidential nomination race heading into the Tuesday voting, but often trailing both Sanders and Biden.Other contenders are also looking for a breakthrough in the new contests, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Klobuchar, all of whom have had key moments in the spotlight during a lengthy run of debates among the Democratic challengers. But current polling shows none of the three would reach the Milwaukee convention among the leaders in the count of pledged delegates.In the South Carolina vote, Biden won nearly 50% of the vote. Sanders was in a distant second place, with 19%. Tom Steyer, a billionaire and philanthropist who has invested substantial time and money campaigning in South Carolina, was in third place, with 11% of the vote, but after the result became known, ended his campaign.Trump congratulated Biden after the South Carolina vote, but disparaged Steyer and Bloomberg’s candidacies.”Tom Steyer who, other than Mini Mike Bloomberg, spent more dollars for NOTHING than any candidate in history, quit the race today proclaiming how thrilled he was to be a part of the the Democrat Clown Show. Go away Tom and save whatever little money you have left,” Trump said on Twitter.Tom Steyer who, other than Mini Mike Bloomberg, spent more dollars for NOTHING than any candidate in history, quit the race today proclaiming how thrilled he was to be a part of the the Democrat Clown Show. Go away Tom and save whatever little money you have left!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 1, 2020Trump added, “I would find it hard to believe that failed presidential candidates Tom Steyer, or Mini Mike Bloombeg, would contribute to the Democrat Party, even against me, after the way they have been treated – laughed at & mocked. The real politicians ate them up and spit them out!”I would find it hard to believe that failed presidential candidates Tom Steyer, or Mini Mike Bloombeg, would contribute to the Democrat Party, even against me, after the way they have been treated – laughed at & mocked. The real politicians ate them up and spit them out!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 1, 2020
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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday threatened to let thousands of refugees cross into Europe and warned Damascus would “pay a price” after dozens of Turkish troops were killed inside Syria.Around 13,000 migrants have gathered along the Turkish-Greek border, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said as several thousand migrants were in skirmishes with Greek police firing tear gas across the frontier.The escalating tensions between Turkey and Russia, who back opposing forces in the Syria conflict, after an air strike killed the Turkish troops sparked fears of a broader war and a new migration crisis for Europe.Erdogan said he would let refugees travel to Europe from NATO-member Turkey.”What did we do yesterday? We opened the doors,” Erdogan said in Istanbul.”We will not close those doors…. Why? Because the European Union should keep its promises.”He was referring to a 2016 deal with the European Union to stop refugee flows in exchange for billions of euros in aid.Turkey already hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees.Thousands to spend ‘cold night’ at borderErdogan’s comments were his first since 34 Turkish troops were killed since Thursday in northern Syria’s Idlib region, where Moscow-backed Syrian regime forces are battling to retake the last rebel enclave.Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said nearly 50,000 migrants had left Turkey for Europe via the western province of Edirne, bordering Greece, in comments published in the official Anadolu news agency.But the IOM said its staff had observed “at least 13,000 people gathered along the 212-kilometre (130-mile) long border.”Thousands of migrants, including families with young children, are passing a cold night along the border between Turkey and Greece,” it said.There were skirmishes on the Turkish-Greek border at Pazarkule Saturday, as Greek police fired tear gas to push back thousands of migrants who hurled rocks at them, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.”Look who’s lecturing us on international law!” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted. “They’re shamelessly throwing tear gas bombs on thousands of innocents piled at their gates.”Unimpeded flow
In 2015, Greece became the main EU entry point for one million migrants, most of them refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war.EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen expressed “concern” on the unimpeded flow of migrants from Turkey to the bloc’s external borders in Greece and Bulgaria.”Our top priority at this stage is to ensure that Greece and Bulgaria have our full support,” she tweeted.In Athens, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis held an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis.”We averted more than 4,000 attempts of illegal entrance to our land borders,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas said after the meeting.A Greek police source said migrants had started fires and opened holes in border fences.Police and soldiers patrolled the Evros river shores — a common crossing point — and issued loudspeaker warnings not to enter Greek territory.The Greek coast guard said that from early Friday to early Saturday 180 migrants reached the islands of Lesbos and Samos, crossing the eastern Aegean from the Turkish coast.One rubber dinghy arrived early Saturday in Lesbos carrying 27 African migrants, many of them women, who wept and prayed on their knees, said an AFP reporter.The UN says nearly a million people — half of them children — have been displaced by the fighting in northwest Syria since December, forced to flee in the bitter cold.Fresh strikes in Syria
Turkey said its forces had destroyed a “chemical warfare facility,” just south of Aleppo.Syria’s state media denied the attack and the existence of such a facility.Turkish drone strikes killed 26 Syrian soldiers on Saturday, an independent war monitor said, after Erdogan threatened the regime would “pay a price” for its aggression.The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes “targeted positions of the regime forces in the Idlib and Aleppo countryside”.The killing of Turkish troops by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces — backed by Russian air power — has sent tensions between Ankara and Moscow soaring.On Friday, Erdogan spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. He may travel next week to Moscow for talks, according to the Kremlin.But the Turkish leader remained critical on Saturday.”I asked Mr Putin: ‘What’s your business there?’,” Erdogan said. “If you establish a base, do so but get out of our way and leave us face to face with the regime.”French President Emmanuel Macron called on Russia and Turkey to establish a “lasting ceasefire” in the Idlib region, after separate phone calls with the two countries’ leaders, a statement from his office said.Seeking support from Europe after the Idlib casualties, Erdogan told Macron that Ankara wanted to see “clear and concrete support” from NATO “not only in words but in deeds”, according to the Turkish presidency.Erdogan also warned the humanitarian crisis would “deepen unless the regime’s attacks are stopped in Syria.”    
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Deaths continue to mount from the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, with Australia, Thailand and Japan reporting new fatalities.In Australia, a 78-year-old man who had been quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship died in Perth, becoming that country’s first outbreak fatality, while in Thailand, a 35-year-old salesman described as having had contact with foreign tourists became that country’s first death from the disease. In Japan, a man in his 70s died on the northern island of Hokkaido.U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday the United States was prepared for any circumstance arising from the coronavirus outbreak as U.S. health officials reported the first death in the U.S. from the virus.
While he said additional coronavirus cases in the United States were “likely” he said, “there is no reason to panic at all.”President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the press briefing room at the White House, Feb. 29, 2020, in Washington.Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Robert Redfield said there was “no evidence of a link to travel” in the case of the Washington state patient who died.
The governor of Washington state, Jay Inslee, declared a state of emergency Saturday, directing state agencies to use “all resources necessary” to respond to the virus outbreak.
The White House Saturday also announced tightened travel restrictions to Iran to include any foreign national who has visited the country in the last 14 days. Additionally, it raised to the highest level a travel advisory to avoid Italy and South Korea, countries most affected by the virus other than China.The spread of the virus has contributed to growing concern over the possibility of a global recession.
China reported Saturday that manufacturing activity declined dramatically in February, as the virus slowed the world’s second largest economy.In related news, there are indications that the economic slowdown in China caused by the outbreak has cut into pollution levels over that country.U.S. space agency NASA and the European Space Agency say they have found significant drops in nitrogen dioxide over China, pointing to “evidence that the change is at least partly related to the economic slowdown following the outbreak of coronavirus.”“This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop-off over such a wide area for a specific event,” said NASA air quality researcher Fei Liu.The two agencies said  Stocks reflect declines on monitors as people work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Feb. 27, 2020.Global stock prices finished the week sharply lower Friday, ending one of the worst weeks for world markets since the 2008 financial crisis.  In the Mideast, where markets opened Sunday after their Friday-Saturday weekend, stocks plunged, hit by fears the economic slowdown could hit demand for oil supplies.
Qatar reported its first case of the virus Saturday, three days after leader Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani ordered the evacuation of its citizens from Iran, the Middle East’s epicenter of the outbreak.French lab scientists in protective suits work on developing a quick test for detecting the coronavirus, at Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, Feb. 6, 2020.France announced 16 new coronavirus cases Saturday and a temporary ban on all public gatherings of more than 5,000 people, one day after Mexico, Nigeria, New Zealand, Lithuania, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Iceland reported their first cases.
In Italy, the civil protection agency said eight more patients had died, bringing the total deaths in the country to 29.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration moved Saturday to accelerate hospitals’ abilities to test for the deadly virus. The agency issued guidelines “enabling laboratories to use tests they develop faster in order to achieve more rapid testing capacity in the United States.”This undated photo provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows CDC’s laboratory test kit for the new coronavirus.The World Health Organization raised its global risk assessment of the coronavirus to its highest level on Friday.
“We have now increased our assessment of the risk of spread and the risk of impact of COVID-19 to very high at global level,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
China, where the virus originated, reported 523 new cases and 35 deaths Sunday. China has a total of 79,824 cases.
South Korea, the hardest-hit country outside China, reported the biggest surge Saturday with 376 new cases, raising the total to 3,526.
Iran confirmed 593 cases and 43 deaths, the highest death toll outside China.
The WHO said Saturday that more than 85,000 people worldwide have been infected in nearly 60 countries and that virus-related deaths topped 2,900.
The worldwide outbreak has led government and companies around the globe to implement closures and restrictions.
Switzerland canceled next week’s Geneva international car show, an important event for the auto industry. Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, told its employees to defer all nonessential travel.
Saudi Arabia has closed off Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina to foreign pilgrims.
In Japan, Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan announced closures. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has ordered schools to close at least through March.
The United States and South Korea called off joint military drills.
In Germany, about 1,000 people are being quarantined in the country’s most populous state. The number of confirmed cases in Europe’s biggest economy exceeded 50.
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South Carolina provided Joe Biden with a lifeline he desperately needed, propelled by the power of the black vote, but his victory does not necessarily provide clarity to the race.Both Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar finished well behind Biden, but they are still planning to compete in Super Tuesday states. They could draw just enough of the vote to deny Biden the numbers he needs to make the case for a one-on-one competition with Sen. Bernie Sanders.And if they don’t, the larger question for Biden is how he fares against Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor, who has spent more than $500 million and will be on the ballot for the first time Tuesday.Other takeaways from the South Carolina primary:Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden talks to Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., at a primary night election rally in Columbia, S.C., Feb. 29, 2020 after winning the South Carolina primary.Biden must broaden his appealThe win in South Carolina was the first primary victory for Biden in his three presidential campaigns. Super Tuesday will prove whether it signals a resurgence, where party leaders try to coalesce around him, or a mirage. Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe endorsed Biden after Saturday’s results.Biden demonstrated his oft-stated appeal to black voters, who historically play a decisive role in determining the Democratic nominee. Now he will have to show that he can broaden that appeal to college-educated suburban women who have been the fulcrum for Democrats in recent elections.The former vice president has still got a long way to go.Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right, with his wife, Jane, speaks during a campaign event in San Antonio, Feb. 22, 2020.Sanders hopes second is a blipFor one brief moment after his commanding Nevada win, Sanders thought he could win South Carolina.Instead, he showed the limits of his progressive appeal in the South. But you can win the Democratic nomination without winning the South, and Sanders wants to show how on Super Tuesday. He has a commanding lead in polls for the biggest prize on the map, California, and is competitive in every state.Sanders’ schedule shows his confidence — he has campaigned in Massachusetts and will travel to Minnesota on Sunday and Monday, trying to win the home states of rivals Warren and Klobuchar.But he won’t be getting a pass, especially from Bloomberg, who has argued that Sanders’ democratic socialism is a loser for Democrats in November.While Biden is hoping South Carolina puts wind in his sails, Sanders just has to hope the current breeze keeps blowing.Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., greets supporters during a rally, Feb. 29, 2020, in Richmond, Va.Check, please?At some point in the nominating process, they stop handing out participation trophies. Klobuchar, Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren have yet to prove they can win with diverse coalitions of the Democratic Party.Now all three will be under varying degrees of pressure to consider dropping out. Among the three, Warren has the most money and organization, but not necessarily the better rationale for staying in the race given the strength of Sanders, the leading progressive.None of the three has shown any notable appeal to African American voters, and they do not have the time or the resources to focus their campaigns more narrowly with an eye on just winning some delegates to maintain leverage.Will Bloomberg’s money equal results?A few hours before polls closed in South Carolina, Bloomberg announced he was buying three-minute ads on two television networks Sunday night. And that will follow an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”Bloomberg hasn’t been a factor yet in the early states — he sat them out in favor of an audacious strategy that he could fill the moderate lane if Biden faltered, by spending hundreds of millions on ads in Super Tuesday states.Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg speaks at the North Carolina Democratic Party’s Blue NC Celebration, Feb. 29, 2020, in Charlotte, N.C.It’s a theory of the case that’s never happened at this level of presidential politics. And it is about to be tested. If Bloomberg doesn’t prevail and merely fragments the moderate vote, that will be to Sanders’ benefit.At the same time, Bloomberg has to try to recover from his disastrous debut on the debate stage in Las Vegas and a second, still rough, session at the South Carolina debate last Tuesday. The Biden resurgence may drown out his hoped-for position as the most sensible alternative to Sanders.
With one voice, for onceFor once, self-described moderate and conservative Democrats spoke with something resembling a unified voice. This group has consistently been the majority of voters in previous contests, only to dilute their vote by splitting it among candidates.But in South Carolina, preliminary results from AP VoteCast found a solid share of moderate and conservative voters — more than half — went for Biden. No more than 1 in 10 backed Buttigieg or Klobuchar.Still, the survey also hints at the possibility of Sanders, who has dominated among liberals, having some crossover appeal. Among moderates and conservatives, 14% voted for the self-described socialist.
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A number of bars in Arlington, Virginia, offer their customers more than a selection of craft beers and cocktails, they offer them a chance to try their hand at cornhole, a game in which players take turns throwing small bags of corn kernels at a raised platform with a hole in the far end. It’s a unique bit of Americana that’s bringing people together. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.
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President Donald Trump said Saturday that his “journey” in the nation’s highest office would have been a failure had he not be able to rid the government of people he says are “bad.” Trump came into office railing against what he and his allies call the “deep state” — career government employees and political appointees held over from prior administrations — claiming it was out to undermine him. He said he has been replacing them with “people who love our country.” “We have such bad people and they’re not people who love our country,” Trump told several thousand cheering and chanting supporters at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. “We’re getting people who really love our country, and it’s so important. “And if I wasn’t able to fulfill that, no matter what other things we’ve done, I would not consider this journey to be a success,” he said. “So just remember that.” Trump didn’t call anyone out by name in his remarks, but he has spoken negatively about the previous FBI leaders during other public appearances. Since being acquitted on two articles of impeachment and being allowed to stay in office, he has reassigned individuals who testified against him during the proceedings or whom he perceives as disloyal to him. He also has brought back to the White House trusted aides who had departed earlier in the administration. Hot topicsThe Republican president, who is seeking reelection, sought to fire up his audience during the wide-ranging, nearly 90-minute speech with talk against state and local policies that shield undocumented immigrants, the number of conservative federal judges who’ve been confirmed by the Senate, his increased spending on the U.S. military and creation of a new branch of the military known as the Space Force. Trump also touched on an agreement signed Saturday between the U.S. and the Taliban aimed at ending war in Afghanistan, and he pledged to protect the health and safety of Americans “with vigor” amid an outbreak of coronavirus, which overnight had claimed its first victim in the U.S. Trump flew to a Maryland hotel to address the annual gathering of conservatives after he called a news conference at the White House to announce a ban on travel to Iran in response to the virus outbreak. He also announced elevated U.S. travel warnings to affected regions of Italy and South Korea. The president closed with a promise to his fawning supporters to “be here next year, OK?” In a reprise of his appearance at last year’s conservative conference, Trump then hugged and kissed an American flag before he left the stage. 
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The man slipped into the U.S from Tijuana, Mexico, and made it just 25 yards from the border before he was arrested. A seven-month journey from Sri Lanka was over for Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam. Now he would be able to tell an American official why he had fled the place he had lived virtually his entire life: As a member of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, he had been beaten and threatened. He would seek asylum to remain in the United States. His timing couldn’t have been worse. His arrival coincided with the start of the Trump administration and its sustained effort to crack down on asylum-seekers. Officials rejected his claim in an initial screening and he was designated for rapid deportation, or expedited removal, as federal law calls it. Now the Supreme Court will decide whether Thuraissigiam and others like him can be deported without ever getting to make their case to a federal judge. Arguments will take place Monday. Question of due processThe administration is seeking a sweeping ruling that it could potentially use to deport millions of people, even those arrested far from the border and who have been in the country for years, experts on the issue said. “The Supreme Court has held for more than a century that anyone in the United States, even those illegally, are entitled to due process. If successful, the government’s argument in this case would reverse this basic principle of constitutional law and theoretically deny due process rights to millions of undocumented immigrants,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration specialist at Cornell University Law School. Yale-Loehr signed onto a court brief siding with the asylum-seeker. The Justice Department counters in its Supreme Court filings that immigrants have no constitutional rights regarding their application to enter the United States under high court rulings. The limited review that Congress provided for when it created expedited removal proceedings is sufficient, the administration said. But the federal appeals court in San Francisco relied on the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in favor of court access to detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to rule that the practice of denying federal court review violates the Constitution. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the administration’s appeal. Thuraissigiam is living in the New York area at the moment. Since 2004, immigration officials have targeted for quick deportation undocumented immigrants who are picked up within 100 miles of the U.S. border and within 14 days of entering the country. The Trump administration is seeking to expand that authority so that people detained anywhere in the U.S. and up to two years after they got here could be quickly deported. A federal judge has put that policy on hold and the administration’s appeal will be heard Friday by the federal appeals court in Washington. Other curbsThe administration has imposed other restrictions on those who say they need refuge in the U.S. because they would be harmed if they had to return home. People crossing through Mexico before arriving at the southern border can no longer seek asylum in the U.S. unless they first have been denied asylum elsewhere. The Supreme Court allowed the policy to take effect while a legal fight over it plays out in the courts. A separate “remain in Mexico” policy that requires asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico until their cases are considered by American officials was temporarily halted this past Friday by a federal appeals court. People who come to the United States to ask for asylum must convince immigration officials that they have a “credible fear” of persecution in their home country. Asylum-seekers who pass that screening generally are allowed into the country as their cases progress. But the bar to grant asylum is narrow; a person must face persecution for race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group. After Thuraissigiam’s arrest in February 2017, he told anyone who asked that because of his support for a Tamil political candidate, he was arrested, put in a van and beaten so severely that he spent 11 days in a hospital. Immigration officials found the account credible, but they determined he did not have a real fear of persecution if he returned home. No ‘credible fear’Having failed this initial screening, known as a “credible fear” screening, he was eligible for quick deportation. Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union who represent him said the official who first interviewed Thuraissigiam was unable to elicit and synthesize critical information, including that the episode likely was a widely known “white van” abduction by Sri Lankan security forces. The translation via telephone also didn’t help, the lawyers said. More critically, the administration doesn’t want to allow Thuraissigiam to make his case in front of a federal judge, said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer who will argue the case. If his client loses at the Supreme Court, Gelernt said, “it will be the first time in U.S. history that an individual was deprived of their liberty, citizen or noncitizen, without the opportunity for a federal court to review the case.” Supporting the administration, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California, said in its court filing that Thuraissigiam is “a would-be immigrant whose only connection to this country is stepping illegally a few yards inside the border.” He has no constitutional right to a full-blown court hearing, the foundation wrote. A decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, 19-161, is expected before summer. 
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The pro-Irish unity Sinn Fein party would easily win a repeat Irish election if ongoing government talks fail, with an opinion poll on Saturday showing it has almost twice as much support as its two nearest rivals. The left-wing party’s support jumped to 35%, ahead of Fianna Fail at 20% and acting Prime Minister Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael at 18% in a Sunday Times/Behaviour & Attitudes poll that may influence early talks between the two center-right rivals. Sinn Fein shocked the political establishment in an election earlier this month by securing more votes than any other party for the first time, almost doubling its vote to 24.5%, ahead of Fianna Fail at 22.2% and Fine Gael at 20.9%. But it has been frozen out of government talks by its two rivals, who refuse to contemplate sharing power because of policy differences and Sinn Fein’s history as the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, the militant group that fought against British rule in Northern Ireland. The conflict, in which 3,600 people were killed, was resolved in a 1998 peace deal. Too few candidatesCaught by surprise themselves, Sinn Fein ran too few candidates to emerge with the most seats — a mistake it will not make next time around. It has already begun a series of packed national rallies to shore up its support. Both Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail have 37 seats in the fractured 160-seat parliament, with Fine Gael at 35, meaning some sort of combination of two of the three largest parties is required to form a government. Bruised by its election defeat, Fine Gael will reluctantly hold a “one-day policy exchange” with Fianna Fail next week as well as similar talks with the Green Party, whose 12 seats would be needed for the two historic rivals to reach a majority. If Ireland’s two dominant parties cannot agree to lead the next government while also maintaining their steadfast opposition to governing with Sinn Fein, a second election would be the only way to break the deadlock. All sides predict talks will take several weeks before such a choice has to be made. 
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President Donald Trump has not proved to be the bearer of reliable information when calamity threatens and people want straight answers about it. That’s happening again as he addresses the prospect of a coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.
With numbers still low, but the first death in the U.S. now reported, the infectious disease risks not only public health but the economy he holds up to voters for his reelection. To date, his comments have largely seemed intended to put a positive spin on hard information from the scientists, as if he were wishing the problem away.
Trump’s comment Friday night, characterizing Democratic criticism of the administration’s response to the virus as a “hoax,” lent weight to the perception that he’s minimizing the potential for harm in search of political gain. He emphasized Saturday that he does not consider the coronavirus threat a hoax – only the pushback from Democrats.
Trump has a record of unreliability on this front. In one hurricane episode, he displayed a map doctored to reflect his personal and ill-founded theory that Alabama would  take it on the chin. In another, he dismissed the Puerto Rico death toll as a concoction by Democrats.
He was fast off the mark to describe the injuries suffered by U.S. service members from an Iranian missile attack as little more than headaches, when it turned out scores suffered traumatic brain injury.
For their part, Democrats have been quick to criticize the Trump administration – at times too quick. Several presidential candidates described the federal response as hampered by Trump budget cuts, which have not happened, and by a decimated public-health bureaucracy, despite the top-of-class scientists steering the effort.Here are the facts behind some of the political rhetoric of the past week, on the virus and more.Virus Outbreak TRUMP: “We are rapidly developing a vaccine. … The vaccine is coming along well, and in speaking to the doctors, we think this is something that we can develop very rapidly.” – news conference Wednesday.THE FACTS: No vaccine is imminent for the coronavirus.
A candidate vaccine for the virus causing COVID-19 is approaching first-step safety tests, but federal experts say anything widely usable is probably more than a year away.
“We can’t rely on a vaccine over the next several months,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health.
—TRUMP: “The level of death with Ebola – you know, at the time, it was a virtual 100%. … There’s a very good chance you’re not going to die. It’s very much the opposite. You’re talking about 1 or 2%, whereas in the other case, it was a virtual 100%. Now they have it; they have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.” _ news conference Tuesday in New Delhi.THE FACTS: “Close” is not correct. A vaccine has already been developed for Ebola. The FDA approved an Ebola vaccine in December. Even before its U.S. approval, it was being used in Congo to help stem the current outbreak.
       ___TRUMP, on U.S. coronavirus cases: “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.” – news conference Wednesday.THE FACTS: That was false assurance. He was referring to the fact that most of the people he cited as having COVID-19 in the U.S. are getting better. But that is not indicative of the spread or containment of the disease since most victims, by far, recover.
Cases in the U.S. are almost certain to increase, his own officials have said repeatedly, and he acknowledged as much Saturday.
       ___TRUMP:  “The flu in our country kills from 25,000 people to 69,000 people a year; that was shocking to me. And so far, if you look at what we have with the 15 people, and they are recovering.”THE FACTS: His remarks on the coronavirus risks are misleading. Scientists don’t know enough about how deadly the new virus actually is, and so far it hasn’t infected nearly as many people as the flu. Of the cases cited by Trump, they are not “all recovering.” One died and four others are “very ill,” he said Saturday.
Flu deaths fluctuate depending on which strain is circulating and how well each year’s vaccine is working, but Trump’s cited range is in the ballpark. Two flu seasons ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated there were 80,000 U.S. deaths, the highest death toll in at least four decades. This year’s flu season isn’t as deadly; so far this season, the CDC estimates there have been 16,000 to 41,000 deaths from the flu.
As to COVID-19, an illness characterized by fever and coughing and in serious cases shortness of breath or pneumonia, there are now at least 60 cases in the U.S., with no deaths reported. In addition to the ones Trump cited, 45 were among groups the U.S. government evacuated and quarantined either from China or the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
In the hardest-hit part of China, the death rate from the new coronavirus was between 2% and 4%, while in other parts of China it was 0.7%. In contrast, the death rate from seasonal flu on average is about 0.1%, said Fauci, of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. That’s far lower than what has been calculated so far for COVID-19. But millions of people get the flu every year around the world, leading to a global annual death toll in the hundreds of thousands.
       ___MIKE BLOOMBERG: “There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he’s defunded _ he’s defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don’t have the organization we need. This is a very serious thing.” _ Democratic presidential debate Tuesday.JOE BIDEN, comparing the Obama-Biden administration with now: “We increased the budget of the CDC. We increased the NIH budget. … He’s wiped all that out. … He cut the funding for the entire effort.”THE FACTS: They’re both wrong to say the agencies have seen their money cut. Bloomberg is repeating the false allegation in a new ad that states the U.S. is unprepared for the virus because of “reckless cuts” to the CDC. Trump’s budgets have proposed cuts to public health, only to be overruled by Congress, where there’s strong bipartisan support for agencies such as the CDC and NIH. Instead, financing has increased.
Indeed, the money that government disease detectives first tapped to fight the latest outbreak was a congressional fund created for health emergencies.|
Some public health experts say a bigger concern than White House budgets is the steady erosion of a CDC grant program for state and local public health emergency preparedness – the front lines in detecting and battling new disease. But that decline was set in motion by a congressional budget measure that predates Trump.
The broader point about there being “nobody here” to coordinate the response sells short what’s in place to handle an outbreak.
The public health system has a playbook to follow for pandemic preparation – regardless of who’s president or whether specific instructions are coming from the White House. Public-health experts outside government have praised the CDC’s work so far and noted that its top scientific ranks have remained stable during the past three years.
       ___Health Care BERNIE SANDERS: “What every study out there – conservative or progressive – says, Medicare for All' will save money.`` - Democratic debate.THE FACTS: Not true. Some studies say that, some don't.
Sanders, a Vermont senator, cites a recent medical journal article in The Lancet, which estimated ``Medicare for All'' would save more than $450 billion annually, or about 13%.
But other studies have found a Sanders-like single-payer plan would cost more, partly because free health care would increase the demand for services.
A study last fall from the Commonwealth Fund and the Urban Institute estimated that such a plan would increase national health spending by about $720 billion. A Rand study estimated spending would increase 1.8% under a national single-payer plan.
       ___Gun Control JOE BIDEN: "A hundred and fifty million people have been killed since 2007, when Bernie voted to exempt the gun manufacturers from liability.'' - Democratic debate.THE FACTS: Biden vastly overstated gun deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports about 413,000 gun deaths from 2007 to 2018, a far cry from 150 million, which equates to close to half the U.S. population. More than half of the gun deaths in 2018 were from suicide, says the CDC. His campaign acknowledged he misspoke.
       ___AMY KLOBUCHAR: "I am the author of the bill to close the boyfriend loophole that says that domestic abusers can't go out and get an AK-47.''
BIDEN: ``I wrote that law.''
KLOBUCHAR: "You didn't write that bill, I wrote that bill.''
BIDEN: "I wrote the bill, the Violence Against Women Act, that took (guns) out of the hands of people who abused their wife.''
KLOUBCHAR: "OK we'll have a fact check look at this." - Democratic debate.
BIDEN: "No, let's look at the fact check. The only thing (is) that that boyfriend loophole was not covered, I couldn't get that covered. You, in fact, as a senator tried to get it covered and Mitch McConnell is holding it up on his desk right now.''THE FACTS: Klobuchar, a Minnesota senator, correctly called out the former vice president for seeming to take credit for legislation closing the "boyfriend loophole.'' Biden conceded the point, then correctly pointed out that the loophole has not been eliminated in law.
In short, Biden did write the legislation that became the Violence Against Women Act, one of his most prominent achievements. The 1994 law sets out services and specific protections for victims of domestic violence.
Klobuchar took the lead in the Senate on legislation passed by the House that would extend the law's protections to help women who are threatened by abusive partners who are not a spouse, ex-spouse or parent of a common child _ in other words, boyfriends or dating partners. But that effort, opposed by the National Rifle Association, has been hung up in the Senate.
 ___Women in the Workplace
BLOOMBERG, responding to Elizabeth Warren's demand that he lift non-disclosure agreements for all women who signed them: "We are doing that, senator.'' - Democratic debate.THE FACTS: He hasn't done that.
Bloomberg agreed to release three women from non-disclosure agreements in situations where they specifically identified an issue with him. But many more former Bloomberg employees have signed such agreements, having to do with the culture and work environment at his company. He hasn't freed them from their obligation to stay quiet about their complaints.
       ___
WARREN: "At least I didn't have a boss who said to me 'kill it' the way that Mayor Bloomberg is alleged to have said to one of his pregnant employees.''
BLOOMBERG: "I never said that.'' - Democratic debate.THE FACTS: The woman who made the allegation against Bloomberg recounted it in a legal filing.
Former Bloomberg employee Sekiko Sekai Garrison, 55, filed a complaint against Bloomberg and his company with the New York Division of Human Rights in 1995. In Garrison's written complaint, she recounted several personal interactions with Bloomberg when she worked at the company.
In one incident, Garrison said Bloomberg approached her near the office coffee machines and asked if she was still married, according to the complaint.
Garrison says she responded that her marriage was great and that she was pregnant with her first child, and alleged that Bloomberg replied: "Kill it.'' Bloomberg has denied that the exchange happened, but in her complaint, she transcribed a voicemail she says Bloomberg later left on her voicemail, apologizing and saying he meant the“kill it” remark as a joke. Her complaint was eventually settled as part of a lawsuit with no admission of guilt, and she resigned from the company.
       ___India
TRUMP: “Now, India has more people than any country, a little bit more than China.“ – news conference Tuesday in New Delhi.THE FACTS: He’s getting ahead of population projections.
India is projected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country around 2027, according to the U.N.’s World Population Prospects report.
       ___
TRUMP, on India’s leader, Narendra Modi: “Under Prime Minister Modi, for the first time in history, every village in India now has access to electricity.” – rally Monday in Ahmedabad, India.THE FACTS: That’s false. The Indian government says a village is considered electrified if at least 10% of homes and public buildings have electricity. According to the World Bank, about 99 million people, or 7% of India’s population, still live in the dark.
       ___
TRUMP: “Six hundred million more people have access to basic sanitation.” – rally Monday.THE FACTS: It’s true that India has built more than 110 million new toilets since Modi’s government came to power in 2014, leading to increased access to basic sanitation. But implementation has been spotty in a country where venturing into the fields to defecate has been widespread and accepted.
More than 60% of India’s 1.3 billion people live in more than 600,000 villages. Poor villagers who couldn’t build toilets in their homes chose open fields, forests, ditches and other open spaces for defecation _ and that cultural practice has been slow to change.
2018 study conducted by the non-profit Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, for instance, found 44% of the rural population across four large states still defecate in the open. Nearly one-quarter of people in households with toilets also continued to defecate in the open, a figure unchanged from 2014, according to the study.
After becoming India’s prime minister, Modi promised to make India free of open defecation. He’s acknowledged the task is not over.
The World Bank previously said about 1 in every 10 deaths in India is linked to poor sanitation.
       ___China
BLOOMBERG, on China’s president, Xi Jinping: “In terms of whether he’s a dictator, he does serve at the behest of the Politburo, their group of people. There’s no question he has an enormous amount of power. But he does play to his constituency.” – Democratic debate.THE FACTS: He’s minimizing Xi’s broad powers in China.
Xi serves as the head of the ruling Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee and is also head of state and leader of the party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army. The Politburo and its standing committee aren’t generally viewed as a check on his power. Although Xi’s moves to accumulate power have been criticized by some non-party intellectuals, he faces no clear rivals or constraints on his power.
However, a faltering economy and the knock-on effects of the coronavirus outbreak that originated in China are seen as placing him under greater pressure than he has previously faced.
      
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