Iran will temporarily release 54,000 people from prisons and deploy hundreds of thousands of health workers as officials announced a slew of measures to contain the world's deadliest coronavirus outbreak outside China.

Pressure has been mounting on Iranian officials to take action against the virus as the death toll and number of cases rapidly shoots up. Iran has reported 92 deaths, as 586 new infections were reported overnight, bringing the total up to 2,922, state media reported.

The country has also come under pressure as Middle Eastern nations, including Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have reported cases with links to the Iranian city of Qom, where several holy sites are regularly visited by large crowds.

In a development that will surely send shivers through the European Union's corridors of power, two officials working at the bloc's administrative headquarters in Brussels have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

"We have confirmation of the case," spokesperson Dana Spinant said after the first case was revealed on Wednesday. Spinant added that reports about a male official working at the European Defence Agency contracting the virus were true, and that he had recently returned from a trip to Italy.

The second case was confirmed just a few hours later on Wednesday with health officials revealing that the patient works in a security unit of the European Council and is believed to have been in contact with a previous case in Belgium.

The European Defence Agency (EDA) has reportedly canceled all meetings to be held at its premises until March 13 as a precaution. The agency has also called off external meetings until mid-March.

The supposedly senior EDA official who contacted the coronavirus reportedly met with a group of approximately 30 officials from other EU institutions last week.

The virus' shift to the West may help give experts more trustworthy information on its virulence and activity

When the novel coronavirus first made its appearance in Wuhan, China, it was newsworthy, but it seemed difficult to trust the information coming out of China, due to its communist governmental structure. To some extent, this suspicion appears to have been justified, as one of the main doctors who warned his own government about the danger of this virus just died from it. Now the virus appears to be making rapid advances in free nations, most notably Italy, South Korea and Japan, and in Iran, sadly taking the life of one of Ayatollah Khameini's top advisers on Monday morning, March 2nd. It also is making headway in the United States, having claimed six lives there over the past weekend and into this week (updated March 3rd, 2020).


There are still gaping holes in our body of reliable information about this virus, its activity and effects on people. This is exacerbating a real period of turmoil in the world's markets, with the Dow Jones marking a drop of more than ten percent in one week last week, travel being sharply curtailed from many of the infected regions to relatively clear ones, and so on.

We hope to periodically chronicle this story until it come to its resolution point.

Any real news on the origin of the virus?

As yet, there is no direct news conceringing where coronavirus originated, or how. The present narrative still is that story of the virus arising from some sort of transmission from the sale of bats and pangolins in a Wuhan market.

Edward "Nick" Robinson, a former official in the United Auto Workers (UAW), pled guilty in federal court Monday to his role in a broader conspiracy to embezzle more than $1 million in union funds. According to the sentencing guidelines in the plea agreement, Robinson faces between 30 and 37 months in prison.

The plea deal means the noose tightens further around disgraced ex-UAW President Gary Jones, who finally resigned last November. Jones has been implicated but not charged in the embezzlement scheme. He resigned several months after his home was raided by federal investigators, but after passage of the new, pro-company, sweetheart labor contracts with the Detroit-based automakers were secured.

Robinson is the latest former top UAW official to be sentenced to a relatively lenient sentence for involvement in the wide-ranging corruption scandal. He is no doubt working with federal investigators to build their case against Jones and other top officials and is in a position to provide devastating evidence against them. At the courthouse Monday, Robinson could be seen smiling and "bear-hugging" federal agents after entering his guilty plea, according to the Detroit News .

Robinson was almost certainly the source of a wiretapped conversation in which Jones offered a no-work job to one of Robinson's relatives in exchange for him taking responsibility for the scandal while remarking they should have "burned the records" of their embezzlement scheme.

Taylor Swift's latest video is more "baby's first political protest" than anything resembling quality entertainment. The Man is basically a lyrical version of a 12-year-old's Twitter feed, not a deep critique of the patriarchy.

If the man Taylor Swift is portraying in her latest music video (unironically entitled The Man) is really how Swift perceives men, one really has to wonder what kind of men Swift has been hanging out with her entire life. The Man portrays toxic masculinity at its most cartoonish and stereotypical - so much so I'm surprised it didn't take a break in the middle of the song to "mansplain" its sophomoric message to the audience.

Indeed, this video has everything an aspiring pre-pubescent feminist who's struggling to pass her women's studies classes could want: female objectification, public urination, ageism, greed, all topped off with a healthy dose of "manspreading" for good measure.

In the video, Taylor Swift plays a "Wolf of Wallstreet"-type of male caricature that would seem more at home in a Brett Easton Ellis novel alongside yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman than in a pop music vid for teens who've yet to discover what good music really is. In the video, the "male version" of Taylor Swift sets about acting like the most insulting version of a man possible, all to a song by Swift that is about how much better and easier her life would be if she were a man.

A provocative advertisement produced by a Swedish marketing firm has tipped its hat to "womanspreading" — purportedly a female-empowering knock-off of the much-derided male sitting position. The gimmick was not well received.

Swedish department store Hansa, which sells fashion items as well as food and drinks, enlisted Malmo Advertising Agency to stir up its brand image — and it seems the stunt worked. The agency rolled out a video showing a woman in a pink pantsuit spreading her legs wide as she sits on what appears to be a bus or train.

"Celebrate the womanspread," the ad reads.

Malmo Advertising Agency told Swedish media that the idea was inspired by the apparent lack of "woman-spreaders" — apparently paying tribute to the handful of courageous females who bravely spread their legs while sitting in public places.

Author and former Democratic candidate Marianne Williamson called it a "coup" that former candidates threw their support behind former Vice President Joe Biden.

In a since-deleted tweet, Williamson also went after pundits calling Biden's campaign a "resurrection."

She endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders in February and has been campaigning on his behalf at some events.

After performing poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire, Biden dominated South Carolina. Shortly after, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg dropped out and decided to endorse Biden.

Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who also ran for the Democratic nomination, additionally threw his support behind the former vice president Tuesday night.

Financial writer and precious metals expert Bill Holter says forget about the relatively small sell-off in the gold and silver markets. The big worry shaking the markets is an enormous global credit problem. Holter explains,

"Your protection about the credit market coming down is asset money, if you want to call it that. Gold and silver have no liability. They are not issued by a central bank, and there is no promise that has to be kept for it to perform. . . . Dollars, euros, bonds or what have you, those are all liabilities of a central bank or sovereign treasury. They all carry liability, and that's what the problem is in today's world. It's a world completely awash in liability. . . . I think, ultimately, you are going to see a credit meltdown."

Holter points out the U.S. government "Plunge Protection Team" is not only trying to prop up the stock market, but also is suppressing gold and silver prices. Holter says,

"Friday's hit in the gold market (down $60 per ounce) is obviously an 'official' movement because they don't want people getting the idea that your safe haven is physical gold and silver. In other words, they tried to steer investment away from gold and silver by smashing it with paper contracts."

There are three main reasons why stocks are falling hard.

1. Uncertainty. It's impossible for investors to gauge the economic impact of the rapidly-spreading coronavirus or its effect on stock prices. Investors buy stocks with the expectation that their investment will grow over time. In periods of crisis, when the environment becomes unfamiliar and opaque, expectations are crushed under the weigh of uncertainty. When expectations dampen, investors sell.
2. The Fed. Although investors have not faced a challenge like the coronavirus before, confidence in the Fed has remained surprisingly high. For the last 10 years, investors have seen multiple interventions by the Fed that were aimed at keeping Wall Street happy and stock prices high. Only recently have investors begun to doubt the Fed's ability to stop the market slide by slashing rates or increasing liquidity. As more investors realize that the Fed does not have the tools to address a supply shock, the selloff is likely to accelerate.
3. Stock buybacks. In the last few years, stock prices have not been driven higher by institutional buyers or Mom and Pop investors. The rise is almost entirely attributable to share repurchases or stock buybacks as they are called. According to the Harvard Business Review, "In 2018 alone, with corporate profits bolstered by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, companies in the S&P 500 Index did a combined $806 billion in buybacks, about $200 billion more than the previous record set in 2007." Coronavirus is dramatically impacting corporate earnings projections and many analysts are predicting recession. Shrinking revenues and profits will put a damper on the jet-fuel that had been pushing stocks higher.

The hanging of four death row convicts behind the brutal gang rape and murder of a young woman in 2012 has been delayed by an Indian court for the third time, prompting scores of netizens to vent anger toward the legal system.

A court in Delhi again deferred the convicts' execution "until further orders" on Monday, pushing the date indefinitely into the future following a long series of delays in a case nearly eight years in the making. Though the Delhi government has already recommended the rejection of convict Pawan Gupta's final remaining plea, according to PTI, many online were up in arms over the hold-up regardless, arguing it made a joke of the law.