The first US citizen to die from the coronavirus has passed away in Wuhan

A US citizen diagnosed with the coronavirus died in Wuhan, China on Thursday, becoming the first American to succumb to the novel virus, one that has already killed more than 700 others.

The death occurred just prior to the largest daily increase in virus deaths since concerns over the virus began late last year — Saturday, Chinese officials reported 86 people died in the previous 24 hours. All of those deaths besides two — one in the Philippines, and one in Hong Kong — occurred in mainland China.

Few details are known about the American citizen who died in Wuhan, …

What is up with that tan line photo of Trump?

Friday evening, an unverified Twitter account posted a photograph of President Donald Trump exhibiting a serious facial tan line. By Saturday, the photograph had gone viral, with people across social media questioning the photographer’s motives — and making memes.

The photo was shared by the account @photowhitehouse, which claims to be run by a photographer named “William Moon.” It features Trump looking wryly over his shoulder, with the wind picking his hair up in a way that reveals a stark contrast between the color of his face and the area around his hairline.

Other photos of the same moment — …

What we know about a Thai mass shooting

At least 20 people have been killed and at least 31 wounded Saturday in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima, about 155 miles northeast of Bangkok.

The suspected shooter, a Thai soldier, took people hostage and barricaded himself inside inside a shopping mall with the hostages and an assault rifle, according to local news outlets.

The suspect streamed himself on Facebook Live Saturday evening local time, saying he was “tired, I can barely move my fingers,” according to the Bangkok Post. Shortly before posting the video, the suspected shooter wrote a social media post stating “nobody can avoid death,” …

Democratic candidates want to use trade to make other countries act on climate change

Democratic presidential contenders said they wanted to use trade to get other countries to act on climate change, but at the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary debate on Friday, they were divided over the recent agreement between the US, Canada, and Mexico, the USMCA, signed by President Trump last month.

“The problem is, if we are going to deal with issues like climate change, not only do we in America have to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, we have to lead the entire world,” said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. “But maybe, just maybe given the …

Bernie Sanders showed us he’s a very skilled politician

Sen. Bernie Sanders is a highly skilled politician, and at Friday night’s debate he showed it.

The Democratic Party is polarized right now between Bernie fans who insist that democratic socialism is the way forward and an establishment that’s terrified Sanders will bring electoral doom. The truth, however, is a bit more boring. Far-left politics isn’t really a winning hand, but Sanders himself is an effective player who consistently outperforms the partisan fundamentals in his races.

Those talents were on display Friday evening at the New Hampshire debate, where he stayed relentlessly on message, emphasized the popular aspects of …

The 7 biggest moments of the Democratic debate

Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren are not having it with Pete Buttigieg, as evidenced by Friday’s Democratic debate in New Hampshire.

The 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has sought to cast himself as a fresh face on the political scene and play into the “Washington outsider” narrative. But Warren and Klobuchar, two deeply experienced and talented politicians who have nevertheless been dogged by questions of “electability,” are not having it.

“We have a newcomer in the White House, and look where it got us,” Klobuchar quipped in reference to Buttigieg. And Warren’s take on Buttigieg’s …

The Democratic establishment is doing a really bad job of stopping Bernie Sanders

On December 11, 1999, about eight weeks before the New Hampshire primary, then-President Bill Clinton endorsed Vice President Al Gore as his preferred successor.

At the time, Gore was running for the nomination against Sen. Bill Bradley, the former New York Knick turned senator from New Jersey.

Clinton didn’t bash Bradley. But he also made a clear choice. After all, he had selected Gore for a role that presupposes he could be president in the middle of a giant national crisis. The move probably wasn’t as obvious as it seems now — the personal relationship between the two was somewhat …

Locke & Key had a long, bumpy road to Netflix. It came out worse for wear.

Locke & Key has had an unusually convoluted road to the screen, with a decade of production twists and no fewer than two previous pilots filmed and discarded. But at last, the long, long-anticipated adaptation of the cult comic has finally premiered. The show’s 10-episode first season was released Friday on Netflix, and it’s tailor-made to please fans of other Netflix series like 2018’s Haunting of Hill House and the popular Series of Unfortunate Eventsboth of which mixed horror-fantasy with a story about dysfunctional siblings uniting to solve a family mystery in a setting with gothic Victorian …

Iowa’s 2016 caucus app worked and everyone forgot about it

Open Sourced logo

The 2020 Iowa caucus has become a tech failure story: A flawed mobile app that was supposed to simplify reporting the caucus results ended up creating chaos and forced the Iowa Democratic Party to rely on paper ballot backups. Three days later, we still don’t know who won — and may never. But this wasn’t the first time mobile apps were used for the caucus. In fact, both parties used mobile apps with similar functions in 2016. We just didn’t hear much about them because they worked.

“This was my worst nightmare when I was watching this happen,” Rodney …

6 top 2020 Democrats vow to reverse Trump’s new landmine policy

Last week, President Donald Trump loosened restrictions on the use of landmines by the US military in conflict areas, reversing an Obama-era policy. Top 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, though, are vowing to reverse the reversal.

In four statements to Vox and a tweet, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), billionaire Tom Steyer, ,Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg all say they will scrap Trump’s policy and revert to the Obama administration one, which prohibited the procurement of landmines and their use outside of the Korean Peninsula. Obama’s …