https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/14/obama-to-endorse-biden-today-what-to-expect-from-his-video/

Watch: Obama endorses Biden in video, says ‘Joe has all the qualities we need in a president right now’

Video marks the public re-emergence of Obama into the political arena

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS |

PUBLISHED: April 14, 2020 at 8:50 a.m. | UPDATED: April 14, 2020 at 11:34 a.m.

WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama endorsed Joe Biden in a video on Tuesday, giving the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee a boost from the party’s biggest fundraiser and one of its most popular figures.

Obama and Biden are close friends from their two terms in the White House, when Biden served as vice president. Biden leaned heavily on his affiliation with the former president throughout the Democratic primary, framing his pitch as an extension of Obama’s presidency. In recent weeks, he has told donors he’s been in touch with Obama about his vice-presidential pick.

The endorsement marks Obama’s return to presidential politics more than three years after leaving the White House. He rarely talks directly about his successor, President Donald Trump, and avoided intervening in the Democratic primary. The field at one point spanned nearly two dozen candidates and Obama offered private counsel to anyone who asked it, but but made no efforts to bolster an individual campaign — including Biden’s.

But Obama has been following the Democratic race closely from the sidelines and is eager to take a more active public role in the campaign. He’s expected to headline fundraisers for Biden and public events in key swing states, if those events can still be held given social distancing guidelines during the pandemic. An Obama adviser said the former president is taking his cues from Biden’s campaign on how he can be most useful as he eases back into a more overtly political role.

The endorsement comes a day after Bernie Sanders also backed Biden. The former vice president now has the support of all of his former Democratic primary rivals except for Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts senator is expected to formally throw her support behind Biden soon, according to a person familiar with her plans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-s3ANu4eMs&feature=emb_logo

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/13/verizon-fired-traumatized-bay-area-exec-after-she-was-sent-overseas-without-security-and-raped-lawsuit-claims/

Verizon fired traumatized Bay Area exec after she was sent overseas without security and raped, lawsuit claims

Woman asked for security, got a drunk colleague, suit claims

PUBLISHED: April 13, 2020 at 2:28 p.m. | UPDATED: April 14, 2020 at 11:49 a.m.

A former Bay Area executive for Verizon claims in a lawsuit that a company subsidiary sent her overseas without security then fired her after she was raped on the trip and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The woman, who filed the lawsuit as “Jane Roe,” was a director working out of San Francisco and making trips around the world to launch and manage company events, according to the lawsuit. Verizon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Roe’s allegations.

A year after she was hired in 2017, she told her boss at Verizon Media that she felt unsafe traveling alone on a trip to the Middle East, but was told, “We need you to do this,” the lawsuit alleged. During a standard pre-trip security briefing, a Verizon security team noted that some locations where Roe would travel required “heightened safety considerations,” the lawsuit claimed. She told her superiors in writing and verbally that she wanted security for the trip, as she believed the work needed to be done in person and she, as a young Jewish woman, was particularly vulnerable, the suit alleged.

Shortly before she left, her boss sent her a message saying the trip was risky and should be done “virtually,” according to the suit filed in San Francisco County Superior Court. That presented her with an “impossible choice:” cancel the trip and imperil a project that was her responsibility, or travel unsafely, the suit claimed. She lobbied to go on the trip, and to be assigned a colleague to travel with, but the only worker she could persuade to accompany her was a man with a drinking problem, the suit alleged.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/11/judge-releases-michael-avenatti-from-jail-over-coronavirus-threat/

Judge releases Michael Avenatti from jail over coronavirus threat

PUBLISHED: April 11, 2020 at 12:05 p.m. | UPDATED: April 11, 2020 at 12:08 p.m.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge has allowed Michael Avenatti to be temporarily freed from a federal jail in New York City and to ride out the coronavirus scare at a friend’s house in Los Angeles.

The attorney, who rose to fame representing porn star Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against President Donald Trump, petitioned last month to be released to home confinement. He said he was at high risk of getting the coronavirus because he had a recent bout with pneumonia and his cellmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan was removed due to flu-like symptoms.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge James Selna said Avenatti may stay at the home of Jay Mannheimer, near Venice Beach, during the 90-day release period but he first must get tested for COVID-19 and be quarantined for 14 days at a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility. He must also post $1 million bond and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet. The judge forbid Avenatti to use any digital devices with internet access.