Month: March 2020

There’s one country in the world that currently has the most knowledge of and experience with Covid-19: China.

China, and specifically Hubei province, is where Covid-19 disease emerged; it’s where scientists first sequenced the virus’s genome; it’s where 83 percent of the 89,000 cases known to date have been recorded; and it’s where doctors and health authorities have been battling an epidemic for two months — while other countries braced themselves for outbreaks — using unprecedented public health measures, including a cordon sanitaire that affected millions.

In recent weeks, though, the number of new infections and deaths reported …

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear California v. Texas and United States House of Representatives v. Texas, two consolidated cases that represent an existential threat to Obamacare, and that were brought by a coalition of red states. That means that, for the third time since President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the justices will hear a lawsuit seeking to eviscerate this legislation.

Texas turns on Congress’s decision to repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate. As originally enacted, the Affordable Care Act requires most Americans to either obtain health insurance or pay higher taxes. …

The 2020 presidential primary campaign field is winnowing down quickly now that the votes are being cast.

Any Democrat with dreams of occupying the Oval Office saw Donald Trump is a vulnerable president who hasn’t broadened his appeal beyond his base. A lot of them decided to run for their party’s nomination to be its standard-bearer in the 2020 election.

Two candidates look stronger than the rest: former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who rose to join the top of the field but then faded, and former New York City Mayor …

The novel coronavirus and Covid-19, the disease it causes, have become a global health issue. But increasingly for President Donald Trump, a member of his family, and his administration officials, the virus is being seen as a weapon the president’s enemies hope to use against him as much as it is a public health concern.

The president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., offered the most pointed encapsulation of this view on Friday, when he told Fox News that Democrats “seemingly hope that it comes here, and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump’s streak of winning.”

No …

Coming off a resounding victory in South Carolina, former Vice President Joe Biden addressed the possibility of a contested convention, sending a clear message to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who currently leads in the delegate count, and who has argued a candidate ought to only need a plurality — not a majority, as party rules dictate — of pledged delegates to become the nominee.

Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Biden said that he would fight for the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in July if Sanders leads in the delegate count …

The Archive of Our Own (AO3), the Hugo-winning fanfiction website, is the latest casualty of Chinese censorship, amid a continued crackdown in the country on queer content, sexually explicit content, and websites based abroad.

Reports surfaced on February 29 that AO3 was no longer accessible through the national Chinese web, and the site appears to be blocked from view within the country, according to Comparitech, a service that allows users to check whether China has blocked a website. In a tweet confirming the ban, the Organization for Transformative Works, the non-profit group that runs AO3, seemed surprised. It’s unclear …

South Carolina Democratic voters have finally delivered former frontrunner Joe Biden a win.

The question is whether that win came just in time for Biden’s hopes on Super Tuesday, which is just three days away — or whether it came too late.

The former vice president had led national polls of the Democratic contest throughout 2019 and into January 2020. But after Biden’s poor showings in Iowa (fourth place) and New Hampshire (fifth place), he saw that lead vanish.

Several problems arose for Biden. Most notably, Sen. Bernie Sanders surged to first in national polls after essentially tying …

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer dropped out of the Democratic presidential contest Saturday, after failing to gain significant traction in South Carolina and other early states despite spending over $100 million on his campaign.

Steyer had never run for public office before, but he ended up becoming a somewhat notable figure in the Democratic field for one main reason: He has money. With that money, he bought himself tickets to most of the Democratic debates. (He spent millions on online ads to solicit small-donor contributions, and millions more to boost his poll performance in early states.) He also poured money into …

Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar’s campaigns have had a problem since the start. And early South Carolina exit polls confirm it: Black voters don’t back them.

According to a survey from the Washington Post, Buttigieg and Klobuchar picked up little support from black voters in the state, who make up 60 percent of the South Carolina Democratic electorate.

The exit polls, which of course are not necessarily reflective of the entirety of the final results still trickling in, show former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Buttigieg with 3 percent support among black voters and 17 percent among white voters, and …