Day: February 15, 2020

As presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has risen in Democratic primary polls — he’s currently in third place nationally according to RealClearPolitics’ polling average — he’s faced increasing scrutiny about his past.

In particular, Bloomberg has been challenged about allegations of sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace, and has been questioned about a number lawsuits filed against him and his eponymous company regarding those issues. On Saturday, a new investigative report from the Washington Post’s Michael Kranish once again surfaced those concerns.

Drawing from previously unreleased court documents, depositions, and interviews with witnesses, Kranish’s …

A new Las Vegas Review-Journal/AARP Nevada poll shows Bernie Sanders with leading the Democratic presidential field in Nevada, where the third contest of the Democratic primary will be held in one week.

The poll found 25 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers support Sanders, 18 percent back former Vice President Joe Biden, 13 percent favor Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and 11 percent support former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer. Both former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar have the support of 10 percent of likely caucus-goers, and 8 percent of respondents said they were undecided.

Republican polling …

A Chinese tourist died due to Covid-19 — the illness caused by the coronavirus outbreak first observed in Wuhan, China — at a French hospital Friday. The case was the first reported death caused by the virus outside of Asia.

“I was informed last night of the death of the 80-year-old patient who has been hospitalized at Bichat hospital since January 25, and who was suffering from a coronavirus pulmonary infection,” France’s health minister, Agnès Buzyn, said in a statement Saturday.

The victim, who has not been named, arrived in France as a tourist on January 16. He was hospitalized …

If you look at predictions from British gambling site Betfair, the Democratic primary has a new top candidate: Mike Bloomberg. His odds of winning the Democratic nomination shot up suddenly in the middle of this week, and on February 14 he briefly passed Bernie Sanders — who has won the popular vote in the two states that have voted so far and is leading in national polls — as the candidate likeliest to win the nomination and likeliest (behind Trump) to be our next president. At the peak on Valentine’s Day, bettors on Betfair gave Bloomberg a 34.5 percent …

Welcome to Vox’s weekly book link roundup, a curated selection of the internet’s best writing on books and related subjects. Here’s the best the web has to offer for the week of February 9, 2020.

• In the wake of the American Dirt controversy, the literary-political group Dignidad Literaria has launched a “death quilt,” a collection of death threats received by marginalized authors. At the Guardian, Alison Flood talks to Myriam Gurba and Roxane Gay about why the death quilt matters:

Gay, who explained that she receives death threats every week, and pays for a security service to