WHAT'S BREWING
TRAIN LIKELY BELONGING TO KIM JONG-UN SPOTTED A train likely belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been parked at his compound on the country’s east coast since last week, satellite imagery showed, amid speculation about his health caused in part by a long period out of the public eye. The satellite photos released by 38 North, a website specializing in North Korea studies, don’t say anything about Kim’s potential health problems. South Korea meanwhile maintains that Jong-Un is "alive and well." [AP]
BIDEN'S PRESIDENTIAL PICK COULD COST DEMS A SENATE SEAT Every Democratic presidential nominee since the 1980s has picked a senator as their running mate. If the party’s presumptive nominee, Joe Biden, does the same in 2020, he could risk what will be, at best, a razor-thin Senate majority. Biden has publicly declared he will pick a female running mate, and most of the names frequently floated for the job come from the Senate. But a growing group of Democrats are warning about the electoral risks of picking a senator as a running mate. [HuffPost]
FLORIDA, 2020'S BIGGEST SWING STATE, IS PUSHING FOR VOTES BY MAIL Trump says that voting by mail is “horrible” and “corrupt” because the “tremendous potential for voter fraud” helps Democrats win elections. But county-level election supervisors in his home state of Florida — where he recently cast a vote for himself, by mail — disagree, and are doing everything they can to ensure this crucial swing state can hold a safe election during the coronavirus pandemic. [HuffPost]
U.S. CHURCH FACES NEGLECT ALLEGATIONS AFTER DEATHS OF CHILDREN IN FIRE For a limestone mantel from the Waldorf Astoria, the church that owns the Olde Good Things antique stores asks for $8,500. But for the death of each child in a fire at a home it ran in Haiti, parents said the same church offered to pay just $50 to $100 in family compensation — along with $150 for funeral-related costs such as new clothes and transportation. On Feb. 13, a fire killed 13 children and two adult caretakers described by the church’s lawyer as disabled. [HuffPost]
DISABLED NEW JERSEY STUDENTS MUST PROMISE NOT TO SUE TO ACCESS ONLINE SERVICES Some New Jersey schools have been forcing students with disabilities to sign waivers promising not to sue the district before giving them access to special education services, HuffPost has learned. A form asks families to “waive and relinquish; fully release and discharge; and indemnify and hold harmless” the school district and its employees “from all claims, liabilities, causes of action, costs, expenses, attorneys’ fees, damages, indemnities, and obligations of every kind and nature, in law, equity, or otherwise,” before providing students with the counseling and speech services. [HuffPost]
AMERICA IS NOT SET UP FOR THIS By the last week of January, Rob DeLeo knew it was going to get bad. “I was having breakfast with my partner and I said, ‘We should get some extra food because we’re going to be inside for awhile,’” said DeLeo, a Bentley University professor who has been studying America’s political response to pandemics for more than 15 years. Over the next two weeks, as he began preparing for a lengthy period of self-isolation, he was struck how calm political leaders seemed to be. [HuffPost] |
0 comments:
Post a Comment