By Alberto Luperon @ LawandCrime.com, Feb. 9, 12:37 pm

Cops in New York City say a man walked into a Bronx precinct, and opened fire at officers.“This is a premeditated assassination attempt,” Commissioner Dermot F. Shea said in a press conference Sunday morning.

The suspect was not struck. He surrendered, but only after running out of bullets, Shea said. Now police are looking to confirm if his gun was the same firearm used in a nearby Saturday shooting in which an officer was shot in the neck and chin, the commissioner said. He said, however, that investigators were “confident” this was the same person. The firearm was described as a 9mm Sig Sauer [....] “It is only by the grace of God and the heroic actions of those inside the building that took him into custody that we are not talking about police officers murdered inside a New York police precinct,” Shea said [....]

Officials did not release the suspect’s name. They described him as a man who’d been convicted in 2002 of attempted murder. In that case, he shot a person, carjacked a woman, crashed that vehicle, and got into a gun battle with police, Shea said. He was released on parole in 2017. The suspect was arrested another time, and had an upcoming court hearing in that matter, Shea said [....]

By Maya King @ Politico.com, Feb. 9

Tom Steyer has blanketed South Carolina in cash. Over the past seven months, he’s spent $14 million in TV and radio ads, spent over $100,000 on ads in black-owned newspapers, hired 93 staffers, an army of volunteers and assembled the largest state-wide operation of any other campaign.

The billionaire activist has poured more money into South Carolina in a short period of time than anyone in the state can remember — and it’s beginning to reshape the contours of the Feb. 29 primary [....]

While there hasn’t been much public polling in the state, Steyer’s been in double-digits in all three surveys released this month. According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Steyer is second only to Joe Biden in the state, with Bernie Sanders a close third.

In a state where African Americans are expected to cast more than half of the primary vote, the Biden campaign has long held up South Carolina as his firewall due to the large amount of black voter support he has there. [....]  as Steyer continues to not only spend big on TV ads but also on local minority media, he's been able to steadily gain ground among some African American voters [....]

Tough talk, candor and resilience are admired in my country. The president is perceived to have these traits.

By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani @ WashingtonPost.com, Feb. 7 (Nwaubani is a Nigerian writer and journalist based in Abuja. Her debut novel, "I Do Not Come to You by Chance," was named a best book of 2009 by The Washington Post. Her latest novel is "Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree.")

ABUJA, NIGERIA - President Trump doesn’t want Africans flooding into his country. But let’s be honest. Who really does? Certainly not any other world leader of this era. Trump just happens to be the one bold or uncaring enough to say the quiet part out loud. He’s the rare white politician sparing us the trouble of deciphering what he might think. And Nigerians love him for it.

Nigerians are generally dismayed by his latest travel ban, which severely restricts immigration to the United States from our country and five others. [...]  But the ban is not likely to dent the prevailing attitude toward Trump here. The data has been consistent for the past three years, and the most recent survey, published by the Pew Research Center in January, shows that almost 6 in 10 Nigerians believe that Trump will “do the right thing regarding world affairs.”

My hairdresser, Yimi Kolo, a 37-year-old mother of four who speaks little English but listens almost all day to a radio station that transmits in pidgin English, told me last week that she just loves Trump for his toughness. He says what he is going to do, and he goes ahead and does it. Her opinion was unsolicited, inspired merely by the mention of Trump’s name on the radio while she was plaiting my hair. The perception of Trump as tough, no-nonsense, blunt, pro-religion and entertaining could be in part why a majority of people in this deeply religious and most populous country in Africa like him [....]

Nate Silver’s model seems to be predicting that Sanders will go on a major run of victories now. It could be that it’s too late for him to be stopped.

After a decade of stagnation, black and African-American workers have seen pay increase. One man’s story shows the hope — and limitations — with that shift.

 ...after hours of chaotic messaging from hospital...

Do you have the sense that political analysts have no clue about how what drives elections anymore? Here's a poly sci professor with a different take and more hopeful forecast for 2020.