Datasets:

Astris

/

LA-Times

like 21

Senate sends Trump defense bill he has vowed to veto

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-11/senate-sends-trump-defense-bill-he-has-vowed-to-veto

The Senate on Friday approved a wide-ranging defense policy bill, sending it to President Trump despite his threat to veto the measure because it does not clamp down on big tech companies he claims were biased during the election. The final vote was 84-13, mirroring a similarly overwhelming margin in the House that, if maintained in both chambers, would be enough to override a potential veto. The Senate vote had been expected Thursday but was delayed after Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky objected to the measure, saying it could limit Trump’s ability to draw down U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Germany. Paul’s actions had raised the specter of a brief government shutdown if a short-term spending bill caught up in the dispute was not approved by midnight Friday, but that possibility faded Friday afternoon. Congress has approved the bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, for nearly 60 years in a row. The current version affirms 3% pay raises for U.S. troops and authorizes more than $740 billion in military programs and construction. Trump has vowed to veto the bill unless lawmakers impose limits on social media companies he claims were biased against him during the election. Trump has also said he wants Congress to strip out a provision of the bill that allows renaming of military bases that now honor Confederate leaders. Paul said Friday that his main point in filibustering the bill “was to point out that the president should have the prerogative to end a war, not just to start wars.″ Paul said that “neoconservatives” such as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) “are inconsistent in saying they want ... to give the commander in chief powers to begin war, but then they want to restrain and hamstring a president from ending a war. I think it’s a pretty important principle to discuss so we did hold things up for a day.’’ Two amendments addressing troop deployment could create “535 commanders in chief in Congress,” Paul said, hampering the president’s ability to draw down troops in Afghanistan and Germany as he has promised to do. Democrats support the measure because they oppose Trump, Paul said, but the amendment would also apply to future presidents, including President-elect Joe Biden. One amendment, co-sponsored by Cheney and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), an Afghanistan veteran, would block troop withdrawals in Afghanistan unless the Pentagon submits interagency reports certifying that the drawdowns would not jeopardize national security. A separate provision pushed by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and other lawmakers would limit planned troop withdrawals in Germany. Paul singled out Cheney by name in a floor speech, saying she and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, share a neoconservative belief in “perpetual war.” “The philosophy of these people is about war and substantiating war and making sure that it becomes and is perpetual war,” Paul said. Cheney hit back on Twitter, charging that Paul was “currently holding up passage of the #NDAA, blaming America, and delaying hazardous duty pay to hundreds of thousands of our service members and their families. Inexcusable.’’ Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in a rare break with Trump, urged passage of the measure despite the president’s veto threat. “This NDAA will unlock more than $740 billion for the training, tools and cutting-edge equipment that our service members and civilian employees need to defend American lives and American interests,’’ McConnell said. “It will give our troops the 3% pay raise they deserve. It’ll keep our forces ready to deter China and stand strong in the Indo-Pacific.’’ The Democratic-controlled House overwhelmingly approved the bill on Tuesday, with140 Republicans joining 195 Democrats to give the measure a margin that would override a veto in the Trump follows through. Trump tweeted Tuesday that he would veto “the very weak” bill unless it repeals Section 230, a part of the communications code that shields Twitter, Facebook and other tech giants from content liability. The dispute over social media content — a battle cry of conservatives who say the social media giants treat them unfairly — interjects an unrelated but complicated issue into the bill. It follows Trump’s bid over the summer to sabotage the package with a veto threat over the naming of military bases after Confederate figures. If he does veto the bill, Congress could cut short its Christmas recess to hold an override vote. “I think we can override the veto, if in fact he vetoes,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday. “I hope he does not veto. I hope he reconsiders. And I think he will get substantial pressure [from Republicans] that, you know, you don’t want to put the defense bill at risk.″ The measure guides Pentagon policy and cements decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, personnel policy and other goals. Many programs can only go into effect if the bill is approved, including military construction.

Wisconsin state court judge rules against Trump lawsuit

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-11/wisconsin-state-court-judge-rules-against-trump-lawsuit

A Wisconsin judge on Friday ruled against President Trump’s lawsuit seeking to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win in the state, another in a string of defeats in the president’s extraordinary attempts to undo his loss. Trump was expected to quickly appeal the ruling from Reserve Judge Stephen Simanek to the conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court, even though his chances there appear to be slim. Trump also has a federal lawsuit in Wisconsin where the judge could rule as soon as Friday. Trump has been urging lower court judges to rule quickly in the cases so he can file appeals before the Electoral College meets on Monday and casts Wisconsin’s 10 votes for Biden. Biden won Wisconsin by about 20,600 votes, a margin of 0.6% that withstood a Trump-requested recount in the state’s two largest counties. Trump asked in the state lawsuit to disqualify more than 221,000 votes in the Democratic strongholds of Dane and Milwaukee counties. Trump did not challenge any ballots cast in counties he won. Simanek ruled Friday that the rules and guidelines of the election were followed during the recount. He said there was no evidence to back up Trump’s claims. “The bottom line here is that the court should do everything to ensure that the will of the voters prevail,” the judge said. Trump also wanted to disqualify absentee ballots cast early and in-person, saying there wasn’t a proper written request made for the ballots; absentee ballots cast by people who claimed “indefinitely confined” status; absentee ballots collected by poll workers at Madison parks; and absentee ballots where clerks filled in missing information on ballot envelopes. Trump’s attorney Jim Troupis argued that clerks in Milwaukee and Dane counties were wrong to rely on guidance from the Wisconsin Elections Commission on absentee ballots. He argued that guidance, some of which had been in place for years or was modified in reaction to the coronavirus pandemic to make it easier for indefinitely confined people to cast ballots, contradicted state law. Biden attorney John Devaney argued Friday that everyone who voted in the presidential election did so “in full compliance of the laws that were in effect at the time of the election.” There is no evidence of fraud or illegal activity, he said. Devaney also said Trump “cynically” targeted ballots cast in Wisconsin’s two most urban, nonwhite counties for disqualification. Devaney noted that no one challenged the laws that had been in place prior to this election, including Trump when he won the state in 2016. Trump and his allies have suffered a string of defeats in Wisconsin and across the country as they’ve put forward lawsuits that rely on unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud and election abuse. A Trump-appointed federal judge in Wisconsin said Thursday that the president’s lawsuit was “incredible,” “bizarre” and “very odd,” and asking to overturn the results would be “the most remarkable ruling in the history of this court or the federal judiciary.” U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig promised to issue his ruling as soon as Friday. The Wisconsin Supreme Court court previously refused to hear his case before it went through the lower courts. A majority of justices have also openly questioned whether disqualifying the ballots, as Trump is seeking, would be appropriate. Also Friday, Republican-controlled committees in the state Legislature held an invite-only public hearing to accept testimony about the election. Republicans asked mainly conservative partisans to speak, including a Milwaukee talk radio host, but not the state’s top elections official or the head of elections in the city or county of Milwaukee.

Trump administration plans 2nd execution in as many days

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-11/trump-execution-alfred-bourgeois-brandon-bernard

The Trump administration plans to continue its unprecedented series of post-election federal executions Friday by putting to death a Louisiana truck driver who severely abused his 2-year-old daughter for weeks in 2002, then killed her by slamming her head against a truck’s windows and dashboard. Lawyers for 56-year-old Alfred Bourgeois say he has an IQ that puts him in the intellectually disabled category, and they contend that should have made him ineligible for the death penalty under federal law. Bourgeois would be the 10th federal death-row inmate put to death since federal executions resumed under President Trump in July after a 17-year hiatus. He would be the second person executed this week at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. Three more executions are planned in January. The series of executions after election day, the first in late November, is the first time in over 130 years that federal executions have occurred during a lame-duck period. Bourgeois’ lawyers contend that the apparent hurry by the Republican president to get executions in before the Jan. 20 inauguration of death-penalty foe Joe Biden, a Democrat, has deprived their client his rights to exhaust his legal options. Several appeals courts have concluded that neither evidence nor criminal law on intellectual disability support the claims by Bourgeois’ legal team. On Thursday, Brandon Bernard was put to death for his part in a 1999 killing of a religious couple from Iowa after he and other teenage members of a street gang abducted and robbed Todd and Stacie Bagley in Texas. Bernard was 18 at the time of the killings, and his was a rare execution of a person who was in his teens when his crime was committed. Several high-profile figures, including reality TV star Kim Kardashian West, appealed to Trump to commute Bernard’s sentence to life in prison, citing, among other factors, Bernard’s youth at the time and the remorse he has expressed over the years. In Bourgeois’ case, the crimes stand out as particularly brutal because they involved his young daughter. According to court filings, he gained temporary custody of the child, referred to in court papers only as “JG,” after a 2002 paternity suit from a Texas woman. Bourgeois was living in Louisiana at the time with his wife and their two children. Over the next month, Bourgeois whipped the girl with an electrical cord, burned her feet with a cigarette lighter and hit her in the head with a plastic baseball bat so hard that her head swelled — then refused to seek medical treatment for her, court documents say. Prosecutors also said he sexually abused her. Her toilet training allegedly enraged Bourgeois and he would sometimes force her to sleep on a training toilet. It was on a trucking run to Corpus Christi, Texas, when he took the toddler with him that he ended up killing her. Again angered over her toilet training, he grabbed her inside the truck by her shoulders and slammed her head on the windows and dashboard four times, court filings say. She died the next day in a hospital of brain injuries. After his 2004 conviction in federal court in southern Texas, a judge rejected claims stemming from his alleged intellectual disability, noting he did not receive a diagnosis until after he had been sentenced to death. “Up to that point, Bourgeois had lived a life which, in broad outlines, did not manifest gross intellectual deficiencies,” the court said. Attorneys argued that such findings stem from misunderstandings about disabilities. They said Bourgeois had tests that demonstrated his IQ was around 70, well below average, and that his childhood history buttressed their claims of his disability. On Thursday night, as Bernard lay on a gurney before receiving the lethal injection, he directed his last words to the family of the couple he played a role in killing, speaking with striking calm. “I’m sorry,” he said, lifting his head and looking at witness-room windows. “That’s the only words that I can say that completely capture how I feel now and how I felt that day.” Referring to his part in the killing of Todd and Stacie Bagley, he said: “I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t.” Todd Bagley’s mother, Georgia, spoke to reporters within 30 minutes of the execution, saying she wanted to thank Trump, Atty. Gen. William Barr and others at the Justice Department for helping to bring the Bagley family closure. But she also became emotional when she spoke about the apologies from Bernard before he died Thursday and from an accomplice, Christopher Vialva, the ringleader of the group who shot the Bagleys in the head before their car was burned with their bodies inside. He was executed in September. “The apology and remorse ... helped very much heal my heart,” she said, beginning to cry and then recomposing herself. “I can very much say: I forgive them.”

EU leaders agree to reduce emissions after all-night talks

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-10/eu-leaders-agree-to-reduce-emissions-after-all-night-talks

European Union leaders reached a hard-fought deal Friday to cut the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade compared with 1990 levels, avoiding a hugely embarrassing deadlock ahead of a U.N. climate meeting this weekend. Following all-night discussions at their two-day summit in Brussels, the 27 member states approved the EU executive commission’s proposal to toughen the bloc’s intermediate target on the way to climate neutrality by midcentury after a group of reluctant, coal-reliant countries finally agreed to support the improved goal. “Europe is the leader in the fight against climate change,” tweeted EU Council president Charles Michel as daylight broke over the EU capital city. “We decided to cut our greenhouse gas emissions of at least 55% by 2030.” Five years after the Paris agreement, the EU wants to be a leader in the fight against global warming. Yet the bloc’s heads of state and government were unable to agree on the new target the last time they met in October, mainly because of financial concerns by eastern nations seeking more clarity about how to fund and handle the green transition. But the long-awaited deal on a massive long-term budget and coronavirus recovery clinched Thursday by EU leaders swung the momentum. World & Nation The reductions are probably a short-lived effect of stay-at-home orders and the resulting economic downturn, and are bound to vanish with a COVID vaccine. Large swaths of the record-high 1.82 trillion-euro package are set to pour into programs and investments designed to help the member states, regions and sectors particularly affected by the green transition, which are in need of a deep economic and social transformation. EU leaders have agreed that 30% of the package should be used to support the transition. Still, agreeing on common language was not an easy task. Negotiations were punctuated throughout the night by intense discussions in the plenary session and chats in smaller groups on the sidelines. Another delay in revising the EU’s current 40% emission cuts objective for 2030 would have been particularly embarrassing before the virtual Climate Ambition Summit marking five years since the Paris deal, and leaders worked to the wire to seal a deal. The event on Saturday will be co-hosted by the U.K. with the United Nations and France. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced last week he wants the U.K. to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 68% from 1990 levels by 2030 — a more ambitious goal than the EU’s. Poland, which last year didn’t commit to the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality goal, and other eastern countries, including the Czech Republic and Hungary, largely depend on coal for their energy. They considered it unfair that all member states should be submitted to the same ambition without considering their respective energy mixes. To win their approval, member states agreed that the new target should be delivered collectively. According to the Belgian prime minister’s office, “leaders agreed that the cuts will be first achieved in sectors and countries where there is still plenty of room for improvement.” In addition, the European Commission will take into account specific national situations when drawing up the measures. A progress report will be submitted to the European Council in the spring. World leaders agreed five years ago in Paris to keep the global warming increase to below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and ideally no more than 2.7 degrees, by the end of the century. Under the Paris accord, countries are required to submit updated climate targets by the end of this year.

Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, who played Deebo in 'Friday,' dies at 62

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-10/tommy-tiny-lister-who-played-deebo-in-friday-dies

Tommy “Tiny” Lister, a former wrestler who was known for his Deebo character in the “Friday” films, has died. He was 62. Lister’s manager, Cindy Cowan, said Lister was found unconscious in his home in Marina del Rey on Thursday afternoon. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Cowan said Lister was diagnosed with COVID-19 this year. She said the actor had overcome the virus, but he became sick about a week ago and recently had trouble breathing. The cause of death has not been released, and the coroner’s office is investigating. “He was a gentle giant,” Cowan said. “He had a smile as broad as you could imagine. He’s going to be missed by so many. We’re all devastated.” Lister started his career as a wrestler, standing 6-foot-5 with broad shoulders at about 275 pounds. His early roles included the HBO football series “1st & Ten” along with appearances in “Beverly Hills Cop II,” which starred Eddie Murphy, and “No Holds Barred,” the 1989 film in which his character, Zeus, challenged Hulk Hogan in a wrestling match. However, Lister’s most notable role came in the 1995 film “Friday” and its sequel five years later. He portrayed the role of Deebo, a felon who was known as the neighborhood bully who terrorized his neighbors with intimidation and fear. His character was known for his infamous line “Get knocked out like your father used to.” Lister also appeared in “The Fifth Element,” “The Dark Knight” and “Austin Powers in Goldmember.” “RIP Tiny ‘Deebo’ Lister,” Ice Cube said Thursday night on Instagram. “America’s favorite bully was a born entertainer who would pop into character at the drop of a hat terrifying people on and off camera. Followed by a big smile and laugh. Thank you for being a good dude at heart. I miss you already.” The death was first reported by celebrity website TMZ.

Anthony Veasna So, acclaimed fiction writer and promising talent, dead at 28

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-10/anthony-veasna-so-acclaimed-fiction-writer-dead-at-age-28

The author of a highly anticipated debut story collection has died. Anthony Veasna So was 28. His death was announced Thursday by his publisher, Ecco, which did not provide additional details. A native of Stockton who had settled in San Francisco, So once described himself as a “queer boy, a Khmer American son of former refugees, a failed computer scientist, a grotesque parody of the model minority and a graduate of Stanford University.” In “Afterparties,” to be published in August, he drew upon the tragedies his family endured in Cambodia during the rule of the Khmer Rouge and his own struggles with sexual and cultural identity. “‘Afterparties’ was one of the first books I acquired for Ecco, and everything about Anthony’s exuberant writing felt new to me — its blazing wit, crackling energy, deep empathy,” So’s editor, Helen Atsma, tweeted Thursday. Publishers Weekly reported earlier this year that So had agreed to a two-book, six-figure deal with Ecco, which prevailed over several other interested publishers. George Saunders, Bryan Washington and Mary Karr are among those who have praised him. “The mind-frying hilarity of Anthony Veasna So’s first book of fiction settles him as the genius of social satire our age needs now more than ever,” Karr wrote in a blurb for the book. “Few writers can handle firm plot action and wrenching pathos in such elegant prose. This unforgettable new voice is at once poetic and laugh-out-loud funny.” Books The author of a highly anticipated debut story collection, “Afterparties,” has died, his publisher announced Thursday. Dec. 10, 2020 The story “Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts,” which ran in the New Yorker in February, is set during a summer night in a family-run business where the neighborhood has been devastated by the financial crisis of 2008-2009. The store is not named for an actual person; the owner, a Cambodian immigrant named Sothy, thought an American name would bring in more customers. Sothy works alongside her two daughters, all of them coping with the lack of business and the knowledge that Sothy’s former husband now has a second family. “Even with the recession wiping out almost every downtown business, and driving away their nighttime customers, save for the odd worn-out worker from the nearby hospital, consider these summer nights, endless under the fluorescent lights, the family’s last pillars of support,” So wrote. “Imagine Chuck’s Donuts a mausoleum to their glorious past.” So taught at several schools, including Syracuse University and Colgate University and the Oakland-based Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants. So is survived by his partner, Alex Torres; his parents, Sienghay So and Ravy So; his sister and brother-in-law, Samantha Lamb and Zachary Lamb, and his nephew, Oliver Lamb. According to Ecco, he had been working on a novel, “about three Khmer American cousins — a pansexual rapper, a comedian philosopher and a hot-headed illustrator.” Books Alison Lurie, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who died last week at 94, was the Austen of our times, as her L.A. novel “The Nowhere City” attests. Dec. 9, 2020

U.S. bombers fly to Middle East in mission to deter Iran

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-10/us-b-52h-bombers-fly-to-middle-east-in-mission-to-deter-iran

In a new show of military might, two American bomber aircraft flew from the United States to the Middle East on Thursday, in a round-trip mission that U.S. officials said covered a wide swath of the region and was a direct message of deterrence to Iran. The flight of the two massive B-52H Stratofortress bombers, the second such mission in less than a month, was designed to underscore America’s continuing commitment to the Middle East even as President Trump’s administration withdrew thousands of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The long-range heavy bombers, which are capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear weapons, are a formidable sight and are flown less frequently in the Middle East than smaller combat aircraft, such as American fighter jets. Adversaries often complain about bomber flights in their region, deeming them a provocative show of force. “The ability to fly strategic bombers halfway across the world in a nonstop mission and to rapidly integrate them with multiple regional partners demonstrates our close working relationships and our shared commitment to regional security and stability,” Gen. Frank McKenzie, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, said in a statement. The troop cuts coupled with the impending departure of the Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf have fueled allies’ concerns that the U.S. is abandoning the region. Those worries are compounded by fears that Iran may strike out at the U.S. or allies in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi. Iran has blamed the death on Israel, which has been suspected in previous killings of Iranian nuclear scientists. U.S. officials are also worried about a possible Iranian retaliatory attack on the anniversary of the U.S. airstrike that killed Iran’s top general, Qassem Suleimani, and senior Iraqi militia leaders near Baghdad’s airport in early January. Iranian-backed militias routinely launch rockets near installations in Iraq where U.S. and Iraqi troops are based, and officials worry about a larger, more deadly assault. “We do not seek conflict,” McKenzie said, “but we must remain postured and committed to respond to any contingency or in opposition to any aggression.” A senior military official, who spoke to a small group of reporters on condition of anonymity to provide details of the mission, said the administration believed that the risk of an Iranian attack on U.S. or allied interests in the region was a bit higher than normal now, and the Pentagon wanted to ensure that Tehran thought twice before doing anything. Adding to the concerns is the presidential transition in the U.S. after Joe Biden’s November victory over Trump. The official said Iran or other adversaries often believed the U.S. might be weaker or slower to respond during a political transition, which American officials flatly deny. Bomber deployments and short-term flights to the Middle East and Europe have been used in the past to send a message to Iran, including a few times in the last two years. According to officials, the bombers flew out of Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana on Wednesday and continued its flight into Thursday. Officially nicknamed the Stratofortress and informally known as the Big Ugly Fat Fellow, the B-52 gained lasting fame in Vietnam as an aerial terror. The two bombers arrived in the Middle East early Thursday morning and then began the return trip home. They flew a roughly 36-hour mission, traveling across the Atlantic Ocean and Europe, then over the Arabian Peninsula and down the Persian Gulf, making a wide loop near Qatar and staying a safe distance from Iran’s coastline, said the military official. The flight was coordinated with U.S. allies in the region, and aircraft from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar flew with the bombers as they traveled through the airspace, according to the official. A senior Defense official said the bombers did not drop munitions of any type during the flight. On some training missions, U.S. aircraft may deploy live, inert or simulated conventional weapons to ensure forces stay proficient. U.S. bombers from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota flew a similar mission in late November. The Nimitz and as many as three other warships in its strike group had been scheduled to head home by the end of the year, but they have been kept in the region, and no new timeline on their departure has been given. Officials, however, have made it clear that the ships’ return hasn’t been decided and the additional time in the gulf area is open-ended. The Pentagon announced last month that the U.S. would reduce troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan by mid-January, asserting that the decision fulfills Trump’s pledge to bring forces home from America’s long wars. Under the accelerated pullout, the U.S. will cut the number of troops in Afghanistan from more than 4,500 to 2,500 and in Iraq from about 3,000 to 2,500.

Justices rule Muslim men can sue FBI agents over no-fly list

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-10/justices-rule-muslim-men-can-sue-fbi-agents-over-no-fly-list

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Muslim men who were placed on the government’s no-fly list because they refused to serve as FBI informants can seek to hold federal agents financially liable. The justices continued a string of decisions friendly to religious interests in holding that the men could sue the agents under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act for what it calls “appropriate relief.” “The question here is whether ‘appropriate relief’ includes claims for money damages against Government officials in their individual capacities. We hold that it does,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court. The three foreign-born men claim in the lawsuit that their religious convictions led them to rebuff agents who wanted them to inform on people in their Muslim communities. “This is a clear prohibition in the Islamic faith,” Ramzi Kassem, the men’s lawyer, told the justices during arguments in October. The men claim the agents then placed or kept them on the list of people prevented from flying because they are considered a threat. The men have since been removed from the no-fly list. A trial court dismissed the suit once their names had been dropped from the list, but they argued that the retaliation they claimed “cost them substantial sums of money: airline tickets wasted and income from job opportunities lost,” Thomas wrote. The federal appeals court in New York agreed with the Muslim men, and the high court affirmed that decision. There’s no guarantee the men will win their case or collect anything from the agents. Thomas noted that the agents can argue that they should be shielded from any judgment by the doctrine of qualified immunity, which the Supreme Court has said protects officials as long as their actions don’t violate clearly established law or constitutional rights they should have known about. Lori Windham, senior counsel at the public interest law firm the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said governments too often change policies to avoid court judgments. “We’re glad the Supreme Court unanimously emphasized that the government can’t expect to be let off the hook by simply changing its tune at the last second. This is a good decision that makes it easier to hold the government accountable when it violates Americans’ religious liberties,” Windham said. In recent years, the court has ruled in favor of people and companies asserting claims under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or the Constitution’s guarantee of religious liberty.

Trump announces that Israel and Morocco will normalize relations

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-10/trump-announces-israel-morocco-to-normalize-relations

Israel and Morocco have agreed to normalize relations, President Trump said Thursday, marking the fourth Arab-Israeli agreement in four months. As part of the deal announced near the end of Trump’s term, the United States will recognize Morocco’s claim over the disputed Western Sahara region. Trump said Israel and Morocco would restore diplomatic and other relations, including the immediate reopening of liaison offices in Tel Aviv and Rabat and the eventual opening of embassies. U.S. officials said there would be joint overflight rights for airlines. The White House said Trump and Morocco’s King Mohammed VI had agreed that Morocco would “resume diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel and expand economic and cultural cooperation to advance regional stability.” “Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco have agreed to full diplomatic relations – a massive breakthrough for peace in the Middle East!” Trump tweeted. The U.S. will recognize Morocco’s claim over Western Sahara, the former Spanish territory in North Africa where a long-running dispute has confounded international negotiators for decades. Trump noted that Morocco had been the first country to recognize the United States just a year after the U.S. declared its independence from Britain in 1776. “It is thus fitting we recognize their sovereignty over the Western Sahara,” Trump said. The deal is the result of talks conducted by the president’s senior advisor, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and his chief international negotiator, Avi Berkowitz. “This is a significant step forward for the people of Israel and Morocco. It further enhances Israel’s security, while creating opportunities for Morocco and Israel to deepen their economic ties and improve the lives of their people,” Kushner said. Morocco is the fourth Arab nation to recognize Israel as the Trump administration seeks to expand a diplomatic framework that began over the summer with an agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Bahrain and Sudan have followed suit and administration officials have also been trying to bring Saudi Arabia into the grouping. “The president reaffirmed his support for Morocco’s serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara territory and as such the president recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory,” the White House said. All these countries are geographically far removed from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, making it easier to strike deals with Israel and the U.S. for their own particular interests. Morocco also has close ties with Saudi Arabia, which has given its tacit support to the normalization process with Israel, even at a time when peacemaking with the Palestinians is at a standstill. Morocco, a country with centuries of Jewish history, has long been rumored to be ready to establish ties with Israel. Before Israel’s establishment in 1948, Morocco was home to a large Jewish population, many of whose ancestors migrated to North Africa from Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition. Today, hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews trace their lineage to Morocco, which accounts for one of the largest sectors of Israeli society. A small community of Jews, estimated at several thousand people, continues to live in Morocco. Morocco has for years had informal ties with Israel. They established low-level diplomatic relations during the 1990s following Israel’s interim peace accords with the Palestinians, but those ties were suspended after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000. Since then, the informal ties have continued, and an estimated 50,000 Israelis travel to Morocco each year on trips to learn about the Jewish community and retrace their family histories. U.S. backing for Morocco’s Western Sahara claim has long been a rumored, but unconfirmed, bargaining chip in talk about diplomatic ties. Morocco had claimed the vast desert area as its “southern provinces” since 1975 as the Polisario Front, based in southern Algeria, sought the territory’s independence. A recent dust-up with the Polisario brought the issue back into headlines.

U.S. jobless claims jump to 853,000 amid resurgence of coronavirus

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-12-10/us-jobless-claims-jump-to-853-000-amid-resurgence-of-virus

The number of people applying for unemployment aid jumped last week to 853,000, the most since September, evidence that companies are cutting more jobs as virus cases spiral higher. The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of applications increased from 716,000 the previous week. Before the coronavirus paralyzed the economy in March, weekly jobless claims typically numbered only about 225,000. The latest figures coincide with a surging viral outbreak that appears to be weakening the job market as well as the economy and threatening to derail any recovery. Consumers thus far haven’t spent as much this holiday shopping season as they have in previous years, according to credit and debit card data. And in November, employers added jobs at the slowest pace since April. Restaurants, bars and retailers cut jobs last month. The total number of people who are receiving state-provided unemployment aid rose for the first time in three months to 5.8 million, the government said, from 5.5 million. That suggests that some companies have sharply pulled back on hiring. All told, more than 19 million people are still dependent on some type of unemployment benefit. And unless Congress acts soon, nearly half of them will lose that aid in just over two weeks. That’s when two jobless aid programs that the federal government created in the spring are set to expire. The first program provides unemployment benefits to the self-employed and contract workers, who weren’t eligible in the past. The second program is the one that extends jobless aid for 13 weeks. Business The lucky among California’s small businesses have cobbled together loans and grants to get through the pandemic so far. But that money has dried up, and “you can only take on so much debt.” Nov. 28, 2020 Members of Congress and the Trump administration are fighting over a roughly $900-billion relief package that could extend the two programs into the spring, sparing about 9 million unemployed Americans from what would otherwise be deeper financial distress. A bipartisan group of senators has proposed to extend the supplemental aid for four months and add $300 a week in federal jobless aid. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin on Tuesday proposed a one-time round of $600 relief checks — half the $1,200 that was provided in the spring. But Mnuchin’s proposal includes no funding for supplemental unemployment aid payments, drawing sharp objections from Democrats in Congress. With a COVID-19 vaccine nearing approval, many economists are optimistic that the economy will rebound strongly next year. But most favor another federal financial relief package to support unemployed workers, small businesses, and state and local governments until then. New confirmed virus cases are now topping 200,000 a day, up from only about 30,000 in the spring. And the average number of deaths each day in the last seven days has surpassed 2,000, roughly matching its peak in April. The virus’ acceleration has led many governors to impose stricter curbs on restaurants, gyms and other businesses in states from North Carolina to California and Washington state. The pandemic appears to have also sharply restricted holiday spending, in part because of stay-at-home orders and other restrictions and in part because many consumers are reluctant to go out shopping. A jump in online shopping hasn’t fully offset a steep decline, compared with last year, in spending at physical stores. Business White and higher-income Californians are most likely to believe today’s children will be worse off than their parents, a new statewide survey finds. Dec. 9, 2020 According to data from Opportunity Insights, a research center affiliated with Harvard and Brown universities, spending on debit and credit cards sank nearly 12% in the week that ended Nov. 29 compared with a year earlier. That marked a sharp drop from the previous week, when such spending was down just 2.3% from 12 months earlier. The steady stream of layoffs across the country has intensified the financial hardships for many Americans. One of the jobless, Montrell McGraw, says he just had to cancel his car insurance and now can’t drive because his unemployment benefit of just $225 a week isn’t enough to keep up with the payments. He was able to cover all his bills when the federal government provided an extra $600 in jobless aid. But that ended in July. McGraw, 26, lost his job as a cook at a Hilton Hotel in New Orleans, where he lives, back in March just after the virus erupted in the United States. He says he has applied for 35 jobs without any luck. His primary work experience is in restaurants, few of which are hiring. Most of the available jobs he sees involve trucking or work on offshore oil rigs, which require certifications he can’t afford to obtain. McGraw has also worked with an advocacy group, Stand Up Louisiana, in support of extending jobless benefits. “I didn’t ask for this — no one asked for this pandemic,” he said. “I am trying to play the cards I am dealt with, and I have a really bad hand.”

China says 2 Canadians have been indicted, tried

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-10/china-says-2-canadians-have-been-indicted-tried

China’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday that two Canadians held for two years in a case linked to a Huawei executive have been indicted and put on trial, but gave no details. Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor have been confined since Dec. 10, 2018, just days after Canada detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who is also the daughter of the founder of the Chinese global communications equipment giant. China has said Kovrig and Spavor were indicted June 19 by the Beijing prosecutor’s office on “suspicion of spying for state secrets and intelligence.” Neither China or Canada has released specifics about their cases. At a daily briefing Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said the two had been “arrested, indicted and tried,” in what appeared to be the first public mention that they had been brought to court. She reiterated that their cases and Meng’s were ”different in nature,” with Meng’s being a “purely political incident.” Despite that, China has consistently linked the fate of the two Canadians to its demands that Meng be released immediately. Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne issued a statement Wednesday marking their two years of captivity, saying; “These two Canadians are an absolute priority for our government, and we will continue to work tirelessly to secure their immediate release and to stand up for them as a government and as Canadians.” “I am struck by the integrity and strength of character the two have shown as they endure immense hardship that would shake anyone’s faith in humanity,” Champagne said. The U.S. is seeking Meng’s extradition from Canada on fraud charges. Her arrest severely damaged relations between Canada and China, which has also sentenced two other Canadians to death and suspended imports of canola from Canada. Meng, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, is living in a luxury Vancouver home while her extradition case continues in a British Columbia court. The U.S. accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to deceive banks and do business with Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. It’s not publicly known where Kovrig and Spavor are being held or under what conditions, although Canada’s ambassador to China testified to a House of Commons committee this week that they were “robust.” Canadian diplomats had been denied all access to the two men from January to October because of coronavirus precautions cited by the Chinese side. On-site visits were banned and not even virtual visits were permitted. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has described China’s approach as coercive diplomacy, spoke last month with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden about the two men’s case and said he expects Biden to be a good partner in persuading Beijing to release them. Canada’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment on Hua’s remarks.

Man who was serving 90-year marijuana sentence is released from Florida prison

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-10/man-who-was-serving-90-year-sentence-for-marijuana-released

While he served a 90-year prison sentence for selling marijuana, Richard DeLisi’s wife died, as did his 23-year-old son and both his parents. His adult daughter was in a horrific car accident and suffered a paralyzing stroke as a result. He never met two granddaughters — a lifetime of missed memories. Yet, 71-year-old DeLisi walked out of a Florida prison Tuesday morning grateful and unresentful as he hugged his tearful family. After serving 31 years, he said he’s just eager to restore the lost time. DeLisi was believed to be the longest-serving nonviolent cannabis prisoner, according to the the Last Prisoner Project, which championed his release. DeLisi also finally met his 11-year-old and 1-year-old granddaughters for the first time this week. “I’m a blessed human being, a survivor,” DeLisi said in a phone interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday while he was in the parking lot of his favorite hamburger joint as he watched his granddaughters laugh and bounce a ball. DeLisi was sentenced to 90 years for marijuana trafficking in 1989 at the age of 40 even though the typical sentence was only 12 to 17 years. He believes he was targeted with the lengthy sentence because the judge mistakenly thought he was part of organized crime because he was an Italian from New York. DeLisi said he had opportunities, but never had any desire for that life. Opinion Last week, the House voted to decriminalize pot, a watershed moment in American drug history. He prefers not to dwell on lost memories and time he’ll never get back. He’s not angry, and instead takes every opportunity to express gratitude and hope. “Prison changed me. I never really knew who God was and now I know and it changed the way I talk to people and treat people,” said DeLisi, who became a mentor to younger inmates. “For me, being there so long, I was able to take gang members from gangs to gentlemen.” When the then-40-year-old hipster with the thick Italian accent first entered prison, he was illiterate, but taught himself how to read and write. Now, he wants “to make the best of every bit of my time” fighting for the release of other inmates through his organization FreeDeLisi.com. “The system needs to change and I’m going to try my best to be an activist,” he said. Chiara Juster, a former Florida prosecutor who handled the case pro bono for the the Last Prisoner Project, criticized DeLisi’s lengthy sentence as “a sick indictment of our nation.” The family has spent over $250,000 on attorneys’ fees and over $80,000 on long-distance international collect calls over the past few decades, but it’s not money they want back. Rick DeLisi was only 11 years old when he sat in the courtroom and said goodbye to his father. Now, he’s a successful business owner with a wife and three children living in Amsterdam. He can’t wait to bring his father overseas and to their vacation home in Hawaii. Those are the memories his father yearned to create while he was locked up. “Taking a swim, lay in the sun, oh so many things, eat at Jack’s Hamburgers,” the father said. Politics Setting the stage for future reforms, the House votes for first time to federally decriminalize and tax marijuana sales. Every moment, even the little ones, is a milestone. For years, 43-year-old Rick dreamed of cooking his father breakfast like he did Wednesday morning with heaping platters of eggs, bacon, sausage and biscuits. He burst into tears just watching his dad eat a bagel and drink a bottle of water that didn’t come from the prison commissary. But it’s bittersweet thinking about the lost time, the waste. For what, his son asks? “It’s just kind of like torment on your soul for 31 years,” he said. “I was kind of robbed of my whole life so I just appreciate that I can witness it, but on the other hand I feel like, isn’t somebody responsible? Is there somebody that can answer to this?” Rick DeLisi said his family fell apart after his father’s sentence. His mother never recovered. His brother overdosed and died, his sister was in a terrible car accident. Rick fled the country at 17 to get away from the pain. “I can’t believe they did this to my father. I can’t believe they did this to my family,” the grieving son said, describing the reunion like opening up an old, painful wound. His voice cracks and his eyes well up with tears as he talks about how grateful he is to finally see his dad. “There’s a feeling of who’s responsible for this debt in my mind, and justice,” said Rick DeLisi. “I don’t mean debt with money. I mean something more valuable. Time. Something you can never get back.”

Senate fails in attempt to block Trump administration's $23-billion arms deal with United Arab Emirates

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-09/senate-falls-short-of-halting-trumps-23b-arms-sales-to-uae

The Senate fell short Wednesday in trying to halt the Trump administration’s proposed $23-billion arms sales to the United Arab Emirates, despite bipartisan objections to the package of F-35 fighter jets and drones stemming from a broader Middle East peace agreement. Senators argued that the sale of the defense equipment, which Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo formally authorized last month after the Abraham Accords that normalized relations with Israel, was unfolding too quickly and with too many questions. The administration has billed it as a way to deter Iran, but the Emirates would become the first Arab nation — and only the second country in the Middle East, after Israel — to possess the stealth warplanes. “Can a lasting peace be purchased with more weapons?” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said in a speech ahead of the vote. Congress has shown a willingness to confront Trump in one main area — on defense policy. But on Wednesday the effort to turn back the arms sales failed to reach the 51-vote majority needed for passage. Trump was expected to veto the two resolutions anyway. The showdown over the sale, alongside sweeping bipartisan support for the annual defense bill despite Trump’s threats to veto it, is potentially a final power struggle between the executive and legislative branches in the final weeks of Trump’s presidency. The Senate will take up the broader defense bill soon. World & Nation The Trump administration has approved a new major arms sale to Taiwan and is slapping sanctions on Chinese officials over the crackdown on pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong. Action is halted for now, though the House, where Democrats have control, would probably be able to pass a bill rejecting the sales. Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a statement after the vote that he was eager to work with President-elect Joe Biden’s administration “to take a closer look at each of these sales before any transfers are completed.” Murphy said the United Arab Emirates’ track record in war-torn Yemen and Libya and its “complicated” relationships with China and Russia raise concerning questions. “I’m not here to say that we shouldn’t be in the security business with UAE,” Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said during the debate. But, he said, “without resolving those issues, is this the moment to be selling for the first time ever F-35s, armed drones into the heart of the Middle East?” The arms sale emerged after the U.S. brokered the Abraham Accords to normalize relations among the Emirates, Bahrain and Israel. In notifying Congress last month, Pompeo said the authorization of the sale was in recognition of the “deepening relationship” with the United Arab Emirates and its need to deter threats from Iran. Pompeo said the “historic agreement” reached with the Abraham Accords offered a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to transform the region’s “strategic landscape.” Politics The Bureau of Land Management is continuing with plans to sell oil leases in California despite opposition from the incoming Biden administration. The sale, worth up to $23.37 billion, includes dozens of F-35s, advanced armed drone systems and a package of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions. It may not become final until next year. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said a list of questions senators sent to Pompeo and then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper about the arrangement remained unanswered. A classified briefing for senators did not appear to adequately answer their questions. “We must assert our congressional prerogative,” Menendez said. Voting “sends a message to the executive branch.” Israeli officials have previously expressed some concern about an F-35 sale. But in October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to confirm Israel’s consent. On Wednesday, senators narrowly rejected one resolution to disapprove the F-35 sales, 49 to 47, and the other over the sale of armed drones, 50 to 46, in procedural votes largely along party lines. That’s far short of the two-thirds majority that would have been needed to overcome a potential presidential veto. Even after Wednesday’s setback, Congress is poised to approve the sweeping annual defense bill despite Trump’s objections. Trump has warned he would veto the bill over a provision to study stripping the names of Confederate leaders from U.S. military bases. He also wants lawmakers to include an unrelated provision to clamp down on the big technology companies over what Republicans, and some Democrats, say is unfair treatment on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. But lawmakers say the tech provision doesn’t belong in the defense policy bill.

Newsom-affiliated companies got $2.9 million in relief loans

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-09/newsom-companies-got-3-million-in-relief-loans

Companies affiliated with California Gov. Gavin Newsom received nearly $3 million in federal loans created to help small businesses survive the pandemic, more than eight times the amount originally reported, according to newly released information from the U.S. government. Nine businesses tied to Newsom’s PlumpJack Group split the nearly $2.9 million in loans through the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, according to new figures released last week. The governor put his business holdings into a blind trust before he took office last year and so would not have participated in the decision to obtain the loans. It was a surprisingly large loan, said Project On Government Oversight senior policy analyst Sean Moulton. The nonpartisan independent watchdog is tracking $1.6 trillion in overall pandemic relief spending, with the Paycheck Protection Program the largest single program. “It seems to be a small business, but it got a lot of money. I’m not sure how the company justifies taking that much money when there were a lot of companies looking to get assistance,” Moulton said. “You hope they’re using it wisely because there’s an opportunity cost there — that money didn’t get used for another small business that may be out of business now.” He said Newsom “certainly runs the risk of encountering some public perception problems” over the loans. The governor already faces criticism for sending his children to private schools for classroom learning as most public schools remain closed and for dining in violation of his own rules with 10 lobbyists and others at the pricey French Laundry restaurant in Napa in early November. California The estimate is smaller than the one made in November by the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office, which put the size of the unexpected cash surplus at $26 billion. Dec. 8, 2020 PlumpJack spokesman Jeff Nead said the money was for 358 employees spread across all the affiliated businesses. Like many businesses imperiled by the pandemic, the companies used the money “to protect our workers and keep them employed.” He said the group is operating within federal guidelines and the funds “have been critical in keeping our staff employed and continuing our operations.” One PlumpJack company, Villa Encinal Partners Limited Partnership, received the largest loan, $918,720, yet lists just 14 employees. For the loan to be forgiven, the partnership must have spent 60% of the money on three months’ worth of wages, which pencils out to annual salaries approaching $160,000 per employee. Dividing 60% of the total among 358 employees brings a much smaller $4,800 per employee. A second company received $680,000 and another more than $500,000. The tally was first reported by KGO-TV Channel 7 in San Francisco. It’s not clear if the company or its affiliates will seek to have the loan forgiven, if they spent that much on salaries, or if they overstretched on their loan applications in the frantic early months of the program, Moulton said, in part because federal reporting requirements are so lax. “The larger loans, I’ve always struggled to figure out how they fit into the overall idea behind the Paycheck Protection Program,” he said. “It was all supposed to be about small businesses, it was supposed to be about keeping people employed, keeping their paychecks coming, and yet we were giving out these millions and millions of dollars.” Newsom has been criticized by many in the business community for his aggressive shutdown orders. He in turn repeatedly has said he is a proud small-businessman and entrepreneur and understands the hopes and dreams tied to business ownership and the anger over having the government restrict or forbid operations. Newsom developed PlumpJack after he helped found it as a wine and spirits shop in San Francisco in 1992. “Before taking office, the Governor transferred title and control of the businesses he founded to a blind trust, a step that goes beyond anything required by law,” Jesse Melgar, Newsom’s communications director, wrote without elaborating. An Associated Press review of the SBA’s initial loan data in July found the governors of at least eight states and both political parties were among political leaders who had ties to companies that received loans through the program. California Republican Kevin Faulconer, termed-out mayor of San Diego, seems intent on testing conventional wisdom by challenging Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s expected reelection bid in 2022. Dec. 7, 2020 PlumpJack Management Group LLC, Newsom’s winery and hospitality company, then reported receiving a loan worth $150,000 to $350,000, and reported retaining 14 jobs thanks to the loan. The company is part of a portfolio of brands that include a resort hotel at the Squaw Valley ski resort, five restaurants and bars, four Napa Valley wineries, a sports retailer and more. Private banks administered the loans to speed their distribution, which raises its own questions, he said. “An organization in part founded by the governor, they might be given special preferential treatment — not because the governor asked for it, but because of all the connections that exist,” Moulton said. That’s in part why he objects to proposals in Congress to simply forgive the loans, no matter how they were used. “This is a useful case to focus on because of some of the high-profile people involved, but I think this is playing out a thousand-fold across the country,” Moulton said. “There are a lot of companies that got money that if you look close enough at it may not make sense with the employment that they have.”

SpaceX launches Starship on highest test flight before it crash-lands

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-12-09/spacex-launches-starship-on-highest-test-flight-crash-lands

SpaceX launched its shiny, bullet-shaped, straight-out-of-science fiction Starship several miles into the air from a remote corner of Texas on Wednesday, but the 6 1/2-minute test flight ended in an explosive fireball at touchdown. It was the highest and most elaborate flight yet for the rocketship that Elon Musk says could carry people to Mars in as little as six years. Despite the catastrophic end, he was thrilled. “Mars, here we come!!” he tweeted. This latest prototype — the first one equipped with a nose cone, body flaps and three engines — was shooting for an altitude of up to 8 miles. That’s almost 100 times higher than previous hops and skimming the stratosphere. Starship seemed to hit the mark or at least come close. There was no immediate word from SpaceX on how high it went. The full-scale, stainless steel model — 160 feet tall and 30 feet in diameter — soared out over the Gulf of Mexico. After about five minutes, it flipped sideways as planned and descended in a free-fall back to the southeastern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. The Raptor engines reignited for braking and the rocket tilted back upright. When it touched down, however, the rocket ship became engulfed in flames and ruptured, parts scattering. Business There are potentially enormous tax implications for Elon Musk: Texas has no personal income tax, while California imposes some of the nation’s highest. Dec. 8, 2020 The entire flight — as dramatic and flashy as it gets, even by SpaceX standards — lasted 6 minutes and 42 seconds. SpaceX broadcast the sunset demo live on its website; repeated delays over the last week and a last-second engine abort Tuesday heightened the excitement among space fans. Musk called it a “successful ascent” and said the body flaps precisely guided the rocket to the landing point. The fuel tank pressure was low, however, when the engines reignited for touchdown, which caused Starship to come down too fast. “But we got all the data we needed!” he tweeted. Musk had kept expectations low, cautioning earlier this week that there was “probably” 1 in 3 chance of complete success. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who founded the Blue Origin rocket company, offered swift congratulations. “Anybody who knows how hard this stuff is is impressed by today’s Starship test.” Two lower, shorter SpaceX test flights earlier this year from Boca Chica, Texas — a quiet coastal village before SpaceX moved in — used more rudimentary versions of Starship. Essentially cylindrical cans and single Raptor engines, these early vehicles reached altitudes of 490 feet. An even earlier model, the short and squat Starhopper, made a tiny tethered hop in 2019, followed by two increasingly higher climbs. Wednesday’s test followed SpaceX’s latest space station supply run for NASA by three days, and the company’s second astronaut flight by less than a month from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. Starship is actually the upper stage of Musk’s envisioned moon- and Mars-ships. It will launch atop a mega booster still in development known as the Super Heavy. The entire vehicle will tower 394 feet — 31 feet taller than NASA’s Saturn V rocket that hurled men to the moon a half-century ago. SpaceX intends to use Starship to put massive satellites into orbit around Earth, besides delivering people and cargo to the moon and Mars. Earlier this year, SpaceX was one of three prime contractors chosen by NASA to develop lunar landers capable of getting astronauts on the moon by 2024. Right before Wednesday’s launch, NASA introduced the 18 U.S. astronauts who will train for the Artemis moon-landing program. While accepting an award in Berlin last week, Musk said he’s “highly confident” of a human flight to Mars in six years — “if we get lucky, maybe four years.” But Musk is the first to admit his timelines can be overly optimistic.

Ohio sheriff's deputy shot Black man 'multiple' times, autopsy shows

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-09/mother-of-black-man-killed-by-ohio-deputy-i-want-answers

The mother of a Black man shot by an Ohio sheriff’s deputy demanded answers Wednesday about her son’s death, saying he’d done nothing wrong and was returning from the dentist with sandwiches for his family when he was killed. Tamala Payne said she wants the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office deputy involved to be jailed, noting that she’ll never be able to hold her son again, except “at his damn funeral.” “I want answers. I deserve answers. I demand answers at this point,” Payne told the Associated Press. Relatives have said that Casey Goodson, 23, was killed in the doorway of his grandmother’s house in Columbus as he walked through the front door. Preliminary autopsy results showed Goodson died from multiple gunshot wounds in his torso, the Franklin County coroner said Wednesday. Final results aren’t expected for at least three months. Ortiz listed the cause of death as homicide, a medical determination used in cases in which someone has died at someone else’s hand but is not a legal finding and doesn’t imply criminal intent. Police have only said that the deputy shot Goodson, without detailing how many shots were fired. Two callers to 911 reported hearing gunshots that day, according to copies of those calls released Wednesday afternoon. “Four shots fired from what sounded like an automatic weapon,” one caller said. The deputy who shot Goodson was Jason Meade, a 17-year veteran of the sheriff’s office. He had been assigned to a U.S. Marshals Services fugitive task force that had just finished an unsuccessful search for a fugitive Friday afternoon. U.S. Marshal Peter Tobin said that on the day of the shooting, Meade confronted Goodson outside his home after Goodson, who was not the subject of the fugitive search, drove by and waved a gun at Meade. One witness heard Meade command Goodson to drop his gun, and when he didn’t, the deputy shot him, Tobin said. Goodson was taken to a hospital where he died. Goodson had a concealed weapon permit and had hoped to become a firearms instructor, his mother and her attorney Sean Walton said Wednesday. Police have said that a gun was recovered from the scene but have not provided details. Payne said Goodson had gone to the dentist that morning, and then returned with sandwiches for himself, his 5-year-old brother and his grandmother. He was shot after he unlocked and opened the front door, Payne said. She learned of Goodson’s death when her younger son called her. “My 5-year-old called me screaming, ‘Mommy, mommy, Casey just got shot. The police just shot Casey, he’s laying on the floor, Mommy, he’s dead, please hurry up, come get me, come get me, I’m scared,’” Payne said. Payne said she, like all mothers of Black men, spend their children’s lives dreading a day like Friday. “You see these other mothers and your heart breaks,” she said. “But you never imagine that it’s going to be you.” The preliminary autopsy report does not resolve conflicting accounts about Goodson’s death, said Chandra Brown, an attorney representing Goodson’s family along with Walton. “It is concerning that they’ve had the body for this long and they still cannot confirm the entrance or exit wounds of the gunshots,” Brown said Wednesday. “It seems intentionally vague, and we’re looking forward to getting the official autopsy report when that is released.” The coroner’s office declined to comment. The state declined a request by Columbus police to review the shooting after Republican state Atty. Gen. Dave Yost said the Police Department waited three days to ask for the state to take the case and after the crime scene had been dismantled. The case was initially given to city police because the Sheriff’s Office does not oversee investigations of its own deputies in fatal shootings. No video of the shooting has emerged. The Sheriff’s Office does not provide officers with body cameras, and the deputy’s SWAT vehicle did not have a dash-mounted camera. The Sheriff’s Office and a police union have declined to comment on behalf of Meade. Meade is a former Marine who received small-arms training before joining the Sheriff’s Office, and has had a generally good performance, according to his personnel file. Two missteps stand out: In March 2019, he was reprimanded for misusing a stun gun on a suspect and failing to notify his supervisor of his use of force. And in September 2007, the Sheriff’s Office prohibited Meade from having contact with inmates but did not disclose what conduct prompted it.

House passes one-week spending bill to avert shutdown, buying time for COVID talks

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-09/lawmakers-act-to-avert-shutdown-buying-time-for-covid-talks

Still spinning their wheels on COVID-19 relief, lawmakers approved a one-week government funding extension Wednesday that buys time for more talks — though there is considerable disagreement over who is supposed to be taking the lead from there. Amid the uncertainty, the House easily passed the government-wide funding bill that sets a new Dec. 18 deadline for Congress to wrap up both the COVID-19 relief measure and a $1.4-trillion catchall spending bill that is also overdue. The 343-67 vote sent the one-week bill to the Senate, where it’s expected to easily pass before a deadline of midnight Friday to avert a partial government shutdown. The measure would give lawmakers more time to sort through the trouble they have created for themselves after months of futile negotiations. Top GOP leaders said the right people to handle endgame negotiations are the top four leaders of Congress and the Trump administration, focused on a proposal by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to eliminate a Democratic demand for a $160-billion aid package for state and local governments. Top Democrats, meanwhile, are backing a bipartisan group of senators who are trying to iron out a $908-billion package. The bipartisan group is getting no encouragement from McConnell, but members are reporting progress on perhaps the most contentious item, a demand by the Senate leader to give businesses and other organizations protections against COVID-related lawsuits. “We’re trying to get a bipartisan compromise along the lines of the Gang of Eight framework,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “We need leader McConnell to stop sabotaging the talks and work with this Gang of Eight, which is the most hopeful and the only bipartisan group together.” Politics A new White House COVID-19 relief plan includes a $600 check but eliminates the $300-per-week unemployment benefit in a bipartisan Senate proposal. Dec. 9, 2020 Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), however, said the only way to resolve the negotiations is for McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and the White House to take charge. “The bipartisan group provided a good foundation kind of a place to start from. And hopefully, the negotiations are real negotiations on what can ultimately pass the House, the Senate, and get signed,” Thune said. “We need to get underway.” The Trump administration is back in the middle of the negotiations, offering a $916-billion package Tuesday that would send a $600 direct payment to most Americans but eliminate a $300-per-week employment benefit favored by the bipartisan group of Senate negotiators. The offer that arrived Tuesday came with the endorsement of the top House Republican and apparent backing from McConnell, who had previously favored a $519-billion GOP plan that has already failed twice. But Democrats immediately blasted the plan over the administration’s refusal to back the partial restoration, to $300 per week, of bonus pandemic jobless benefits that lapsed in August. “I think everybody is encouraged that there is a real framework here that everybody agrees on and there’s a few issues that are still the sticking points,” Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin told reporters Wednesday. “The two biggest issues are the money for state and local governments and liability protections. If we can’t resolve those, we can move forward on everything else. I don’t want to tell a bunch of small businesses that they can’t get [paycheck protection)] loans.” President-elect Joe Biden is pressing for as much pandemic relief as possible, though he’s not directly involved in the talks. McConnell says Congress will not adjourn without providing the long-overdue COVID-19 relief. The pressure to deliver is intense — all sides say failure isn’t an option. The bipartisan negotiating group — led by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, among others — is seeking to rally lawmakers behind a $908-billion framework that includes a $300-per-week pandemic jobless benefit and $160 billion for state and local governments. It is more generous than a plan assembled by McConnell but far smaller than that assembled by House Democrats. Politics The House of Representatives has easily approved a defense bill, defying a veto threat from President Trump in the waning days of his administration. Dec. 9, 2020 Details leaked Wednesday on less controversial elements of the plan, including a four-month extension of jobless benefits set to expire at the end of the month, $300 billion for Paycheck Protection Program subsidies for struggling businesses, funding for vaccines and testing, and a host of smaller items such as aid to transit systems, the Postal Service and healthcare providers. Negotiations continue on a hotly contested liability shield from COVID-related lawsuits brought against businesses, universities and others that have reopened during the pandemic. The liability issue is regarded as a key to an eventual agreement that would pair the business relief with a $160-billion state and local aid package sought by Democrats. “Right now we’re targeting struggling families, failing businesses, healthcare workers, and we don’t have a stimulus check to every single person, regardless of need,” said Collins. But there’s clear momentum for another round of payments going out to taxpayers despite reservations among rank-and-file Republicans concerned about corralling costs. A potential COVID agreement would catch a ride on a separate $1.4 -trillion government-wide spending bill that has its own set of problems, including fights over protections for the sage grouse, and the Census Bureau and accounting maneuvers being employed by lawmakers to squeeze $12 billion more into the legislation. “We’re still looking for a way forward,” McConnell said Wednesday morning. Pelosi said she’s encouraged about the reports she’s hearing from the bipartisan talks. “I think that we’re close,” Pelosi said. “That’s what they tell me.”

Stocks fall broadly, led by weakness in tech companies

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-09/weakness-in-tech-companies-leads-stocks-lower-on-wall-street

U.S. stock indexes pulled back from their recent record highs Wednesday as COVID-19 cases surged and coronavirus vaccines moved closer to distribution. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 0.8%, as losses in technology companies outweighed gains in industrial, energy and materials stocks. The benchmark index is still up 1.4% for the month after climbing to record highs four times in the last two weeks. Markets have been mostly pushing higher in recent weeks on hopes that one or more coronavirus vaccines will begin to be distributed soon and start to ease the pandemic’s grip on the economy. A vaccine from Pfizer and German partner BioNTech, which is already in use in Britain, is on track for a positive review and potential approval in the U.S. within the next week. The Food and Drug Administration will also consider a vaccine developed by Moderna this month. But there could be more economic damage in store over the next few months, and investors are still closely watching Washington for any developments on another shot of stimulus for individuals, businesses and state governments. Congress is still divided over the size and scope of any new package, and the Trump administration has added to the potential plans with a new $916-billion proposal. “You haven’t seen a deal out of Congress, so to the extent that markets have been rallying on another round of hope about stimulus, not getting that lets a little bit of air out of the market,” said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Baird. The S&P 500 dropped 29.43 points to 3,672.82. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 105.07 points, or 0.4%, to 30,068.81. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite declined 243.82 points, or 1.9%, to 12,338.95. The Russell 2000 index of small-company stocks fell 15.63 points, or 0.8%, to 1,902.15. Small-company stocks have been outgaining the broader market this month, and the Russell 2000 is holding on to a 4.5% gain. Technology stocks fell, dragging much of the market with them. Healthcare and communications stocks also slipped. Microsoft shed 1.9% and Pfizer fell 1.7%. About 56% of the companies in the S&P 500 fell. Qorvo, the biggest decliner, slid 5.6%. Treasury yields rose, a sign of optimism for the economy. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 0.94% from 0.90%. Investors showed they still have an appetite for IPOs: Meal delivery service DoorDash soared 85.8% in its market debut. The company has been one of the beneficiaries of the stay-at-home economy as more people shop and order food from their homes. The market has generally been making gains as investors weigh the continued economic damage being inflicted by the virus against anticipation for a return to normalcy as vaccines start to move closer to approval and wide distribution. The recent surge in coronavirus cases and tighter restrictions on businesses over the last few weeks have again raised the importance of a vaccine for beaten-down businesses. European markets ended mixed. Asian markets mostly rose.

Weeks after election, YouTube cracks down on misinformation

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-09/weeks-after-election-youtube-cracks-down-on-misinformation

More than a month after the U.S. presidential election, YouTube says it will start removing newly uploaded material that claims widespread voter fraud or errors changed the outcome. The Google-owned video service said Wednesday that this is in line with how it has dealt with previous elections. That’s because Tuesday was the “safe harbor” deadline for the election and YouTube said enough states have certified their results to determine Joe Biden as the winner. But this election was different from past elections and YouTube has been widely criticized for not doing more to prevent misinformation from spreading on its platform. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, which put measures in place — with some success — YouTube had until Wednesday stood by its decision to allow baseless claims about election fraud to stay up. There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Election officials confirmed there were no serious irregularities and the election went well. Atty. Gen. William Barr said last week the Justice Department has not identified voter fraud that would change the presidential election. That hasn’t stopped President Trump and his supporters from claiming that is the case. Conservative news sites and YouTube accounts have been instrumental in spreading these claims, like a 90-second cellphone video that showed a man closing the doors of a white van and then rolling a wagon with a large box into a Detroit election center. It was intended to show fraud, but was quickly discredited by news organizations and public officials — the man was a photojournalist hauling camera equipment, not illegal ballots. Still, the damage was done, reinforcing voters’ belief that the election was marred by fraud and irregularities. YouTube said it is trying to strike a balance between “allowing for a broad range of political speech and making sure our platform isn’t abused to incite real-world harm or broadly spread harmful misinformation.”

Biden calls for action on coronavirus as he introduces his healthcare team

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-08/biden-calls-for-action-on-virus-as-he-introduces-health-team

President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday called for urgent action on the COVID-19 pandemic as he introduced his healthcare team, which will be tested at every turn while striving to restore normality to the nation. Biden laid out three coronavirus priorities for his first 100 days in office: a call for all Americans to voluntarily mask up during those 100 days, a commitment to administer 100 million vaccine shots, and a pledge to try to reopen a majority of the nation’s schools. “Out of our collective pain,” Biden said, “we are going to find a collective purpose: to control the pandemic, to save lives and to heal as a nation.” Topping the roster of picks was California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra as his health secretary nominee. The Latino politician rose from humble beginnings to serve in Congress and as state attorney general. Others include a businessman renowned for his crisis management skills and a quartet of medical doctors, among them Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease specialist. The usual feel-good affirmations that accompany such unveilings were overshadowed by urgency, with new cases of coronavirus averaging more than 200,000 a day and deaths averaging above 2,200 daily as the nation struggles with uncontrolled spread. Vaccines are expected soon. Scientific advisors to the government meet Thursday to make a recommendation on the first one, a Pfizer shot already being administered in Britain. President Trump held his own event Tuesday, to take credit for his administration’s work to speed vaccines. But having an approved vaccine is one thing; getting it into the arms of 330 million Americans is something else altogether. Biden will be judged on how well his administration carries out the gargantuan task. On Tuesday, the president-elect warned that his team’s preliminary review of Trump administration plans for vaccinations had found shortcomings. And he called on Congress to pass legislation to finance administration of vaccines as they become more widely available next year. That would essentially close the loop from lab to patient. The rest of Biden’s extensive healthcare agenda, including expanding insurance coverage and negotiating prices for prescription drugs, will probably hinge on how his administration performs in this early test of competence and credibility. Becerra, Biden’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, will be backed in the White House by businessman Jeff Zients, who will assume the role of coronavirus response coordinator. Running complex, high-risk operations is his specialty. Alongside Fauci, the other medical doctors selected included infectious disease specialist Rochelle Walensky to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Vivek Murthy as surgeon general and Yale epidemiologist Marcella Nunez-Smith to head a working group to ensure fair and equitable distribution of vaccines and treatments. Participating by video, Fauci called Biden’s 100-day plan “bold but doable, and essential to help the public avoid unnecessary risks and help us save lives.” Ever the straight talker, he warned: “The road ahead will not be easy. We have got a lot of hard and demanding work ahead.” Health and Human Services is a $1-trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans. In choosing Becerra to be his health secretary, Biden tapped a prominent defender of the Affordable Care Act. But Becerra, 62, will face questions in his Senate confirmation about whether he possesses sufficient healthcare and management experience. Becerra as a congressman played an insider role helping steer Obamacare to passage, and as California attorney general he leads a coalition of Democratic states trying to block the Trump administration’s latest attempt to overturn it. He has been less involved in the day-to-day work of combating the coronavirus. Becerra would be the first Latino to serve as U.S. health secretary. In announcing his pick Tuesday, Biden initially stumbled on the Spanish pronunciation of Becerra’s name. But Biden was drawn to Becerra’s working-class roots, his longtime effort to increase access to healthcare and his willingness to work with Republicans to solve problems like getting patients access to COVID-19 treatments. Accepting his nomination via video link, Becerra called it a “breathtaking opportunity” and pledged to work to “rebuild unity and civility in America.” Biden is under pressure from fellow Democrats to ensure that his Cabinet is diverse. Black and Asian American groups are pressing for more representation. Biden’s choice of Becerra smooths, but does not end, the concerns of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about Latino representation. Becerra’s mother emigrated from Mexico, and his U.S.-born father spent his formative years in that country. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Becerra as California’s top prosecutor in late 2016, after Kamala Harris won election to the U.S. Senate. Becerra instantly struck a combative tone toward the incoming Trump administration. Defending California’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act was a key priority, but he also focused on protecting young immigrants from deportation and defending California’s climate change laws. As health secretary, Becerra would be responsible for overseeing the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for unaccompanied minors who enter the U.S. illegally. As attorney general, Becerra helped lead a coalition of state attorneys general who sued the Trump administration over its child separation policies. Republicans made clear their attack lines on the pick. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas argued that Becerra was unqualified because he lacked ties to the healthcare or pharmaceutical industries. Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana blasted his support for “Medicare for all,” which is not Biden’s policy. Antiabortion groups have called Becerra “unacceptable.” Typically, the Health and Human Services secretary’s job requires political connections, communication skills, managerial savvy, a willingness to learn about complex medical issues and a creative legal mind to use vast regulatory powers without winding up on the losing end of lawsuits. As a former 12-term congressman, Becerra will enter the job knowing Capitol Hill but will need to establish ties with governors who will play outsize roles in distributing the COVID-19 vaccine.

14 Ft. Hood officers, soldiers fired or suspended over violence at base

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-08/14-fort-hood-soldiers-fired-suspended-over-violence-at-base

The Army on Tuesday said it had fired or suspended 14 officers and enlisted soldiers at Ft. Hood, Texas, and ordered policy changes to address chronic leadership failures at the base that contributed to a widespread pattern of violence including murder, sexual assaults and harassment. Two general officers were among those being removed from their jobs, as top Army leaders announced the findings of an independent panel’s investigation into problems at the Texas base. The actions, taken by Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, come in the aftermath of a year in which 25 soldiers assigned to Ft. Hood died due to suicide, homicide or accidents, including the bludgeoning death of Spc. Vanessa Guillen. Guillen was missing for about two months before her remains were found. The firings and suspensions include Army Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt, who was left in charge of the base earlier this year when Guillen was killed, as well as Maj. Gen. Jeffery Broadwater, commander of the 1st Cavalry Divisions. The administrative actions are expected to trigger investigations that could lead to a wide range of punishments. Those punishments could range from a simple letter of reprimand to a military discharge. The base commander, Army Lt. Gen. Pat White, will not face any administrative action. He was deployed to Iraq as the commander there for much of the year. McCarthy also ordered a new Army policy that changes how commanders deal with missing soldiers, requiring them to list service members as absent-unknown for up to 48 hours and to do everything they can to locate the service members to determine if their absence is voluntary or not before declaring anyone AWOL, or absent without leave. Army leaders had already delayed Efflandt’s planned transfer to Ft. Bliss, where he was slated to take over leadership of the 1st Armored Division. Command of a division is a key step in an Army officer’s career. Efflandt’s move to the division was paused while the team of independent investigators conducted its probe into whether leadership failures contributed to the killings of several people, including Guillen, and who should be held accountable. According to investigators, Guillen, 20, was bludgeoned to death at Ft. Hood by Spc. Aaron Robinson, who killed himself July 1 as police were trying to take him into custody. Her family has said Robinson sexually harassed her, though the Army has said there is no evidence supporting that claim. Also in July, the body of Pvt. Mejhor Morta was found near a reservoir by the base. And in June, officials discovered the remains of another missing soldier, Gregory Morales, about 10 miles from that lake.

Families of California shooting victims sue sellers of 'ghost guns'

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-08/families-of-shooting-victims-sue-sellers-of-ghost-guns

Families of people killed and wounded in a rural California shooting rampage three years ago are suing manufacturers and sellers of “ghost gun” kits that provide easy-to-assemble firearm parts that make it difficult to track or regulate owners. A pair of wrongful death lawsuits filed last month in separate state courts accuse 13 defendants of negligence, public nuisance and violation of business codes. The cases were brought by Brady United, a national nonprofit organization that advocates against gun violence, which said Monday that the suits are the first of their kind in the nation. Ghost guns, which are cobbled together with various parts often purchased separately, have long been popular among hobbyists and firearms enthusiasts. The weapons, which contain no registration numbers that could be used to trace them and require no background checks, increasingly have shown up at crime scenes, gun control advocates say. “There is an ample and thriving gun market in this country in which law-abiding citizens can get guns through proper channels. This is an industry that appears aimed at supplying people who can’t legally have guns,” Brady’s chief counsel, Jonathan Lowy, said Monday. Cody Wilson, the director of Ghost Gunner Inc., one of the defendants, called the suits “low-effort attempts to confuse the public and frustrate the lawful purpose of making your own firearms in California.” The other 12 defendants, most of them online retailers, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The plaintiffs include the families of Michelle McFayden, Diana Steele, Daniel Le and Joseph McHugh, who died in the November 2017 shooting, and Francisco Cardenas, who suffered serious injuries. Investigators say the shooter, Kevin Neal, manufactured an unregistered rifle used in the rampage with ghost gun parts despite being ordered by a judge to surrender all his weapons as part of a restraining order. Neal, 44, killed his wife and four others before he died by suicide while being chased by deputies in Northern California’s Tehama County. Neal targeted an elementary school while randomly shooting at homes and motorists in a sprawling rural subdivision about 130 miles north of Sacramento. “Defendants knew when they entered this business that they would foreseeably be supplying criminals, killers, and others whose possession of firearms pose an unacceptably high threat of injury or death to others,” the California court filings say. Their marketing materials “intentionally targeted prohibited persons and other dangerous individuals like Neal. Such tactics and practices were unfair, immoral, unethical, oppressive and unscrupulous.” The cases were filed in the Superior Courts of Orange County and San Bernardino County. It’s possible the two lawsuits could be consolidated into a single trial, Lowy said. The court filings ask for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. “Companies who evade state and federal gun safety laws in order to market gun kits to people who cannot lawfully buy or possess guns in California should face liability for their negligence,” said Brady United co-counsel Amy Van Zant. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives doesn’t classify the do-it-yourself kits as firearms, so buyers don’t have to undergo the usual background checks and in most states the guns are not required to have serial numbers. In September California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to order the ATF to change its policy, arguing that it violates the common definition of a firearm under federal law.

EPA overrides scientists' calls for tougher pollutant limit

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-12-07/epa-overrides-scientists-calls-tougher-pollutant-limit

The Trump administration on Monday made final its decision to leave limits for a deadly kind of air pollutant unchanged, overriding scientific findings that tougher standards could save tens of thousands of lives yearly. Environmental groups and many scientists have condemned the decision, slated to be among the final actions of an administration that targeted most proposed and many existing health and environmental protections as a burden to businesses. In the coal state of West Virginia, officials welcomed Monday’s announcement by Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler, who was a lobbyist for coal immediately before coming to the Trump EPA. The tougher air standards called for by many scientists in and out of the federal government “could have been a huge blow to the coal industry,” Douglas Buffington, West Virginia’s senior deputy attorney general, told reporters. Wheeler’s decision leaves unchanged limits for what is broadly called “fine particulate matter” — the tiny bits of soot we breathe in unseen from tailpipes, wildfires, factory and power plant smokestacks and other sources. EPA scientists have estimated exposure at current limits causes the early deaths of tens of thousands of Americans annually from heart disease and lung cancer, as well as causing other health problems. “Their callous disregard for the lives of people and imperiled wildlife, just to save the nation’s biggest fossil fuel polluters a few bucks, is sickening,” Robert Ukeiley, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity advocacy group, said of the EPA’s move. Wheeler on Monday said the country’s levels for the invisible, deadly pollutant were better than the global average. Environmental groups promised a legal challenge to Monday’s action, which makes official a decision earlier announced by Wheeler. The decision was part of a five-year review of limits required under the Clean Air Act.

Ranchers who avoid cheetah 'hangouts' can protect cattle without killing the rare cats

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-07/avoiding-cheetah-hangouts-helps-ranchers-protect-calves

On the dusty savannahs of Namibia, one of the last strongholds of cheetah populations on Earth, conflicts between cattle ranchers and big cats threaten the survival of the embattled carnivores. But new research on how the cats use their terrain has allowed some ranchers to reduce the number of calves killed annually by 86% — largely by avoiding popular cheetah hubs. The findings, which promise to save the lives of not just calves but the felines as well, were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Cheetahs are the fastest land mammal, capable of speeds exceeding 60 miles per hour. But they also hold another distinction: the rarest big cat in Africa, with fewer than 7,000 alive in the wild. By following the movements of 106 cheetahs wearing GPS collars from 2007 to 2018, researchers from Germany and Slovenia gleaned new insights into cheetah social structure. Climate & Environment Researchers found a chemical related to vehicle tires that is responsible for killing more than half the coho salmon in Puget Sound each year. Dec. 3, 2020 Unlike most African felines, cheetahs hunt by day, covering vast distances. Some males team up to hunt and defend territories, but other males and all females lead largely solitary lives. Even a loose-knit society needs a way and place to communicate. Within core areas of their territories, some male cheetahs leave scent marks by urinating or defecating in prominent locations — typically on trees, termite mounds or rocks. Other cheetahs come to these areas to sniff around and learn who has passed by recently and who may be ready to mate or fight. “You can think of these landmarks as the most popular bar in town,” said Jörg Melzheimer, an ecologist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and co-author of the new study. “It’s the main address for all the boys and girls looking for partners to go. It’s a communication hub.” And these hangouts are enduring. Through interviews with ranchers, Melzheimer learned that some trees marked by cheetahs were also used by cheetahs 80 years ago. “They go back generations and generations,” he said. Using GPS tracking data that recorded locations every 15 minutes, the researchers calculated that cheetah activity around these hubs is about 20 times higher than elsewhere. “This is an extraordinary data set demanding a huge amount of work, and the authors have used state-of-the-art statistical methods to analyze the data thoroughly,” said Tim Caro, a biologist at UC Davis who was not involved in the study. The hub areas are the most dangerous for calves, which are vulnerable to cheetahs during the first six months of their lives. In 2008, researchers convinced the first rancher to move herds to avoid cheetah hubs during calving season. The team initially wasn’t certain whether the big cats would follow the herds or simply prey more on wildlife, such as grazing oryx, in and around the hubs. The cheetahs went for the wildlife. As word got out, other ranchers joined the experiment. The scientists collected data on cheetah kills before and after herding routines were changed for six ranches. Other ranchers also changed their routines. The average number of calves lost to cheetahs each year dropped from 15 to two, the researchers found. The trend held for a decade, indicating that the change wasn’t arbitrary. The study shows that cheetahs “are only opportunistically targeting livestock, not selecting them,” said Elizabeth Naro, a conservationist at African People & Wildlife, who works on carnivore monitoring in Tanzania and was not involved in the study. “What the authors found is exciting because it shows that cheetahs rely on activity centers, where predation is simply incidental,” said Christine Wilkinson, a UC Berkeley researcher who studies carnivore conflict in Kenya and was not involved in the study. “The researchers realized the focus should be on ‘problem areas,’ not ‘problem individuals,’ for cheetahs.” Keeping calves away from cheetah communication hubs can help mitigate conflict with ranchers, said Vincent Van Der Merwe, a biologist at the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Cheetah Metapopulation Project in South Africa. “This is not a complete solution, because cheetahs still roam a larger landscape,” added Van Der Merwe, who was not part of the study. “But it can make a big impact.”

U.K. readies for 'V-Day,' its first shots in the war on the coronavirus

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-07/uk-readies-for-v-day-its-1st-shots-in-war-on-coronavirus

It’s been dubbed “V-Day” in Britain — recalling the D-Day landings in France that marked the start of the final push in World War II to defeat Nazi Germany. A week after the U.K. became the first Western country to authorize widespread use of a vaccine against COVID-19, it is preparing to administer its first shots on Tuesday in its war on the virus. Those 800,000 doses will first go to people older than 80 who are either hospitalized or already have outpatient appointments scheduled, along with nursing home workers. In other words, the National Health Service is saying to the waiting public, in effect: Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Only those who have been contacted by the NHS to arrange an appointment will be getting the jab. Most people will have to wait until next year before there is enough vaccine on hand to expand the program. “I don’t think people should expect anything over the next few days because the reality is … that for the vast, vast, vast majority of people, this will be done in January, February, March,″ said Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers. “And the one thing that we don’t want people to get anxious about or concerned about is, ‘where’s my letter?’ in December.” Public health officials around the globe are watching Britain’s rollout as they prepare for the unprecedented task of rapidly vaccinating billions of people to end the pandemic that has killed more than 1.5 million worldwide. Although the U.K. has a well-developed infrastructure for delivering vaccines, it is geared to vaccinating groups such as schoolchildren or pregnant women, not the entire population. The U.K. is getting a head start on the project after British regulators on Dec. 2 gave emergency authorization to the vaccine produced by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech. U.S. and European Union authorities are also reviewing the vaccine, alongside rival products developed by U.S. biotechnology company Moderna, and a collaboration between Oxford University and drugmaker AstraZeneca. On Saturday, Russia began vaccinating thousands of doctors, teachers and others at dozens of centers in Moscow with its Sputnik V vaccine. That program is being viewed differently because Russia authorized use of Sputnik V last summer after it was tested in only a few dozen people. But the vaccine can’t arrive soon enough for the U.K., which has more than 61,000 coronavirus-related deaths — more than any other country has reported in Europe. The U.K. has more than 1.7 million cases. The first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were delivered to a selected group of U.K. hospitals on Sunday. The 800,000 doses are only a fraction of what is needed. The government is targeting more than 25 million people, or about 40% of the population, in the first phase of its vaccination program, which gives first priority to those who are at the highest risk from the disease. After those older than 80 and nursing home workers, the program will be expanded as the supply increases, with the vaccine offered roughly on the basis of age groups, starting with the oldest people. Buckingham Palace refused to comment on reports that Queen Elizabeth II, 94, and her 99-year-old husband, Prince Philip, would be vaccinated and the action publicized in an effort to show that there was nothing to fear from the jab. “Our goal is totally to protect every member of the population, Her Majesty, of course, as well,” Dr. June Raine, chief executive of Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, told the BBC on Sunday. In England, the vaccine will be delivered at 50 hospital hubs in the first wave of the program, with more hospitals expected to offer it as the rollout ramps up. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are making their own plans under the U.K.’s system of devolved administration. Logistical issues are slowing the rapid rollout of the Pfizer vaccine because this effort will be a cold war: The vaccine has to be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit). The immunization program will be a “marathon, not a sprint,” said professor Stephen Powis, medical director for NHS England. Authorities also are focusing on large-scale distribution points because each package of vaccine contains 975 doses, and they don’t want any to be wasted. The U.K. has agreed to purchase millions of doses from seven different producers. Governments around the world are making agreements with multiple developers to ensure they lock in delivery of the products that are ultimately approved for widespread use. Dozens of armed forces personnel are assisting in building vaccination centers in the U.K. in preparation for what Health Secretary Matt Hancock has dubbed “V-Day.” His reference harked back to Britain’s World War II effort and Winston Churchill’s patriotic appeals, such as his “V for Victory” hand gesture. Hancock even used some Churchill-style rhetoric after last week’s vaccine approval, saying, “This is a day to remember, frankly, in a year to forget.”

Will the U.S. ever have a national COVID-19 testing strategy?

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-07/will-the-us-ever-have-a-national-covid-19-testing-strategy

As the coronavirus epidemic worsens, U.S. health experts hope Joe Biden’s administration will put in place something Donald Trump’s has not — a comprehensive national testing strategy. Such a strategy, they say, could systematically check more people for infections and spot surges before they take off. Health experts say it would be an improvement from the current practice, which has professional athletes and students at elite universities getting routine tests while many other Americans stand in line for hours — if they get tested at all. “We have had no strategy for this virus. Our strategy has been no strategy,” said Dr. Michael Mina, a Harvard University researcher focused on the use of testing to track disease. Some experts say the lack of such a system is one reason behind the current national explosion in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. “If we’d had a more robust approach and testing was scaled up as one of the tools, I think much of this third surge would have been avoidable,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. World & Nation With COVID-19 cases surging and families hoping to gather safely for Thanksgiving, long lines for coronavirus tests have reappeared across the U.S. Nov. 19, 2020 There are differing opinions on what such a strategy should look like, but many experts say rapid and at-home tests should be used so Americans can check themselves and stay away from others if they test positive. The president-elect has endorsed that strategy, called for making testing free for all Americans, and said government experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies should be empowered to coordinate the entire effort. “The reality is, we’re not testing enough today,” said Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, co-chair of Biden’s coronavirus advisory board. Biden’s transition team so far has not gone into further detail. Testing was one of the first — and most enduring — stumbles in the federal government’s response to the coronavirus epidemic that hit the nation early this year. Opinion It’s true that the science about COVID-19 can be confusing and changes over time. But understanding it, and acting accordingly, are a literal matter of life and death. So why can’t our leaders get this right? Oct. 3, 2020 In February, the CDC distributed test kits to public health laboratories that initially were faulty. U.S. officials worked with companies to expand testing, but shortages of chemicals, materials and protective equipment meant fewer tests were available than what experts said was necessary. Worse, some experts say, states and cities competed against one another to buy limited testing services and materials, and with little guidance or training on how best to use the tests. In April, President Trump declared governors were responsible for testing. Amid complaints about shortages and delays, the federal government began sourcing and shipping key testing supplies to states, beginning with swabs. In the latest phase, Trump officials are sending more than 100 million rapid, point-of-care tests to states. The government said the first shipments went out in early October. Such tests are considered key to slowing spread, but states have distributed them differently. Alaska, for example, is sending tests to oil drilling sites, while Colorado is giving them to local public health agencies to test homeless populations, and Mississippi is using them in veterans’ homes. California California failed to establish an effective coronavirus testing system early on, leaving it far behind — even now — in the fight against COVID-19. July 12, 2020 There’s also no federal standard for reporting test data. Some states report the number of tests administered, while others tally the number of people tested. Some have counted types of tests that others don’t, which can skew results because some tests are better than others at diagnosing active infections. Administration officials say they are proud of the current state of testing. Last month, Vice President Mike Pence celebrated that 170 million tests had been completed and that an expanding array of tests were available. But the focus should be less on numbers and more on action, said Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the University of Nebraska College of Public Health. “It shouldn’t be anybody who needs a test can get a test,” Khan said. “It should be anybody who has a positive test immediately gets isolated,” and the people they’ve been in contact with are checked and placed in quarantine. California Contact tracers tell people they’ve tested positive for the coronavirus or warn they’ve been exposed to it. The conversations are confidential and sometimes surprisingly intimate. Dec. 2, 2020 He was echoed by Biden advisor Nunez-Smith, a health equity researcher at Yale. “Testing is only useful when we can act on the test,” she said. Trump himself has voiced a lack of enthusiasm for comprehensive testing. In a June tweet, the president called testing a double-edged sword that was good to have but “makes us look bad.” Our testing is so much bigger and more advanced than any other country (we have done a great job on this!) that it shows more cases. Without testing, or weak testing, we would be showing almost no cases. Testing is a double edged sword - Makes us look bad, but good to have!!! And Dr. Scott Atlas — who, before he resigned Monday, was a top pandemic advisor to Trump — argued against testing people who weren’t experiencing symptoms. But some regard such thinking as an attempt to spin a leadership failure into something else. “The executive branch has seen test results — case counts — as a report card on its performance,” said Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington evolutionary biologist who studies emerging infectious diseases. The nation may be weeks away from coronavirus vaccines becoming available, but that won’t erase the need for testing, said Eileen O’Connor of the Rockefeller Foundation. “We’re not going to get everybody vaccinated right away. And we still don’t know how long that immunity will last,” she said. So testing will still be needed to monitor where the infection is active and to see if infections are occurring in vaccinated people. What should be done moving forward? In July, the Rockefeller Foundation called for making cheap tests widely available to better identify people who are infected and don’t know it. That would involve developing and making cheap antigen tests, which provide quick results but are less reliable than genetic tests. Foundation officials hoped the government would push companies to manufacture tests the same way it pushed vaccine makers to mass produce experimental vaccines. Science & Medicine A system of pooled coronavirus tests to catch asymptomatic infections among Duke University students helped keep the campus open in the midst of the pandemic. Nov. 21, 2020 Some Harvard researchers believe that testing half the population each week would be possible by mailing those tests to millions of U.S. households. Participation would be voluntary, and positive results would have to be confirmed with genetic tests — the home tests are not considered as sensitive as more established lab-based testing. Even so, it could dramatically expand the amount of infection monitoring going on across the nation, its proponents say. During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, of the National Institutes of Health, said Americans should have easy tests they could do in their own homes. “We don’t have that,” he said. “We should have that.” Versions of such an approach have been tried in some places, including Minnesota and Slovakia. But some experts note there is little precedent for screening tens of millions of people with cheap, rapid tests — which would generate a significant portion of false results. It’s also unclear whether people who test themselves at home will follow instructions to quarantine. Nearly all experts agree that more data and coordination are needed. “Having every state do its own thing without guidance from the federal level — from CDC in particular — I think has really hampered us,” said Scott Becker, chief executive of the Assn. of Public Health Laboratories. “It is a federal response as much as it is a state response, but it’s a shared responsibility. We need to work together.”

NYC bar owner hits deputy with car amid arrest for defying COVID rules, officials say

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-06/sheriff-defiant-nyc-bar-owner-struck-deputy-with-his-car

The co-owner of a New York City bar that authorities said had been defying coronavirus restrictions was taken into custody early Sunday after striking a deputy with a car, authorities said. Danny Presti tried to drive away from his bar, Mac’s Public House, as deputies were arresting him on suspicion of serving patrons in violation of city and state closure orders, Sheriff Joseph Fucito said. Deputies attempted to arrest Presti as he left the bar early Sunday, but Presti got into his car, struck a deputy and kept driving for about 100 yards even as the deputy was left hanging onto the hood, Fucito said. California Orange County argue that its coronavirus conditions are not as bad as in the hot zones and maintain the state should not treat them like L.A. County. Dec. 6, 2020 Presti, 34, was eventually stopped and apprehended, the sheriff said. Charges against him were pending. Mark Fonte, an attorney for Presti, said he had not yet had an opportunity to speak to his client. Fonte said he expected Presti to be arraigned later Sunday. The deputy was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries. His condition wasn’t immediately available. The Staten Island bar was the site of protests last week after sheriff’s deputies arrested Presti on charges of violating restrictions aimed at halting the spread of the coronavirus and obstructing governmental administration. The tavern is in an area designated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as an orange zone because of spiking COVID-19 rates and was not supposed to be serving customers indoors. But the owners had declared the bar an “autonomous zone,” a nod to protesters who claimed control over a Seattle neighborhood in June. A representative of Mayor Bill de Blasio said Presti’s actions showed a disregard for human life. “In both of these instances,” said spokesperson Bill Neidhardt, “whether it’s flouting public health laws or ramming a car into a uniformed deputy, this individual has endangered the lives of others.” Authorities said the bar was still serving patrons Saturday night even though it was ordered closed entirely after Presti’s earlier arrest. Deputies surveilling the pub saw that the front door to the bar was locked but customers were being directed to a building next door, Fucito said. From there, they were able to enter Mac’s Public House through a back door and order food and beverages, he said.

Israeli police cleared in shooting of maimed Palestinian boy

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-06/israeli-police-cleared-in-shooting-of-maimed-palestinian-boy

Israeli authorities have cleared police of any wrongdoing in the case of a 9-year-old boy who lost an eye after apparently being shot in the face by an Israeli officer earlier this year. Malik Eissa was struck by what appeared to be a sponge-tipped munition in February and lost vision in his left eye. Residents said he had just gotten off a school bus in the Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya in east Jerusalem when police opened fire. Police said at the time they had responded to riots in the tense neighborhood and used what they call nonlethal weapons. In a statement sent to the Associated Press on Saturday, the Israeli Justice Ministry said its unit for internal police investigations concluded that while the incident was “sad,” there were insufficient grounds for prosecution after interviewing witnesses and reviewing video and other evidence. It said police were conducting an arrest operation at the time and were attacked by a group of stone throwers. It also said that medical experts could not determine whether the boy had been struck by a bullet or a stone. It said, however, that the investigations unit ordered a review of operational conduct, including its use of sponge-tipped bullets in civilian areas. Malik’s father, Wael Issa, told AP that his family had been the victim of injustice twice — first when the boy was shot and now with the investigation being closed. “When my son was shot, the members of the investigative unit came to the hospital. They were about to cry. They told me, ‘Don’t worry, those responsible for shooting him will be held accountable,’ ” he said Sunday. “But 10 months after investigating, they decided to close the file.” He said the boy suffers from constant headaches and psychological problems and has not returned to school because of repeated surgeries and embarrassment about his appearance. He said his son finally agreed to return to school two weeks ago after receiving a glass eye but stopped going after a couple of days because of an embarrassing incident. “The eye fell out in front of the students. He feels terrible,” he said. “Frankly speaking I don’t believe I will ever get justice in this system.” Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups have long accused Israel of whitewashing wrongdoing by its security forces. B’tselem, Israel’s leading human rights group, said the case “exemplifies whitewashing at work.” “Every individual case is isolated to a series of technical details, as though this was a singular incident, rather than an open fire policy,” it said. It accused police of operating within “an oppressed civilian population to enforce an occupation and annexation,” leading to civilian casualties and impunity for those who harm them. Issawiya is part of east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war along with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, territories the Palestinians want for a future state. Israel later annexed east Jerusalem in a step that is not internationally recognized and views all of the city as its capital. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as their future capital. Issawiya has been the site of frequent police raids that often ignite demonstrations or clashes. Police blame the violence on local youths, whom they accuse of throwing stones and firebombs at patrol vehicles.

Saudi prince strongly criticizes Israel at Bahrain summit

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-06/saudi-prince-strongly-criticizes-israel-at-bahrain-summit

A prominent Saudi prince harshly criticized Israel on Sunday at a Bahrain security summit that was remotely attended by Israel’s foreign minister. Prince Turki al-Faisal, who led Saudi intelligence for more than two decades and served as ambassador to the U.S. and U.K., said any normalization deals needed to help the Palestinians obtain their own independent state. He described Israel as a “Western colonizing” power. He said Israel had “incarcerated [Palestinians] in concentration camps under the flimsiest of security accusations — young and old, women and men, who are rotting there without recourse to justice. They are demolishing homes as they wish, and they assassinate whomever they want.” Although the prince does not hold any official position, his stance is seen as closely mirroring that of King Salman. In contrast, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has signaled greater willingness to quietly engage with Israel to counter common rival Iran and boost foreign investment in the kingdom. Prince Turki’s comments come as neighboring Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recently moved to normalize relations and establish ties with Israel. Saudi Arabia has insisted that any normalization between it and Israel can only happen alongside a lasting peace deal involving a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The kingdom publicly continues to state its unwavering support for the Arab Peace Initiative, a 2002 Saudi-sponsored deal that offers Israel full ties with all Arab states in return for Palestinian statehood on territory Israel captured in 1967. Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, who spoke immediately after Prince Turki, said: “I would like to express my regret on the comments of the Saudi representative.” “I don’t believe that they reflect the spirit and the changes taking place in the Middle East,” he said.

Europe battles surge in coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-05/europe-battles-surge-in-coronavirus-deaths-in-nursing-homes

As the two mortuary workers pushed a stretcher with a corpse in a bag out of the room, the elderly man in the adjacent bed briefly awakened from his dementia. “Is he dead?” he muttered, extending his arm, trying to touch his roommate for the last time. Reflecting on a scene repeated too many times, one of the workers, Manel Rivera, despaired at the growing number of older people dying as the coronavirus resurges. “The sad thing is,” he said of the surviving man in the Barcelona nursing home, “in a few days we’ll probably come back for him.” Mortuary workers are again busy around-the-clock in nursing homes and hospices across Europe, amid outbreaks that this time are causing havoc mostly in facilities spared during the spring. In the U.S., patients in nursing homes and long-term care facilities and those who care for them have accounted for a staggering 39% of the country’s 281,000 coronavirus deaths. The surge in Europe is happening despite the retaining wall of measures erected since the spring, including facilities tailored only for residents with coronavirus. It’s also pitching authorities and elder care professionals into a race against the clock before mass vaccinations can begin. Science & Medicine COVID-19 vaccines may not be particularly effective in the elderly residents of long-term care facilities. A look at why they are getting them first. In response, Portugal has deployed military units to train nursing home staff in disinfection. In France, where at least 5,000 institutionalized older people have died in the past month, and in Germany and Italy, where the summer respite has been followed by an upward turn since September, visits by relatives to nursing homes are being restricted again or banned altogether. Most countries are ramping up screening of workers and residents, trying to prevent spread by asymptomatic coronavirus carriers. The strategy has helped Belgium reduce nursing home deaths from 63% of all COVID-19 fatalities before mid-June to 39% at the end of November. But in Spain, where the pandemic has ignited a polarized debate on the country’s ability to care for Europe’s fastest-aging society, nursing home coronavirus-related deaths have been climbing for two months. They now make up roughly half of all new daily fatalities, a similar share as in March and April. New daily infections are also disproportionate in the homes — 13 cases inside for every one outside. There is reason for hope, however, as Britain became the first country in the world to authorize a rigorously tested COVID-19 vaccine last week, and could begin dispensing it within days, prioritizing nursing home residents and those who care for them, followed by other older people and healthcare workers. Nursing homes are also at or near the top of the list for vaccines in the U.S., Spain and many other European countries. “It’s a sensible, justified and logical measure” to prioritize nursing homes, said Miguel Vázquez, head of Madrid’s Pladigmare association of residents’ relatives. After a “shameful” death toll and a record of repeating mistakes, he said, “not doing so would be a deliberate death sentence.” Some things have improved since the spring. Care workers have learned to make the best use of protective equipment and tests, which are no longer in such short supply. There’s a better grasp of what’s going on inside most facilities, and experts have learned how COVID-19 affects older people, with symptoms such as diarrhea and rashes that had been overlooked. “It really is a chameleon disease that fools us all,” said Dr. José Augusto García Navarro, head of Spain’s Society for Geriatrics and Gerontology. One of the gravest mistakes in the early days was to cloister older people in damaging isolation, García Navarro said, leading to loss of mobility, insomnia, malnourishment, depression and other ailments that affected and even killed many. World & Nation IBM security researchers detect a cyberespionage effort that tried to collect information associated with a U.N. COVID-19 vaccination program. “It’s paramount to guarantee physio, occupational and psychological therapies for the infected,” he said. “That didn’t happen during the first wave and is not happening as it should during the second one.” An initiative in Spain is trying to remedy that with facilities for recovering coronavirus patients who, while remaining contagious, have nowhere to isolate or keep active. They come from their own homes or from the many small care facilities that have no way to separate residents. At the Vitalia Canillejas Home in Madrid, Belkis Zoraida Cuevas, 83, is recovering from the virus, which has kept her away from her husband, 92-year-old Joaquín González, for the longest period in more than six decades of marriage. “Oh my God! What a crisis of anxiety. How I’ve cried,” Cuevas said. “I’m doing better now, but this has been too much to handle. It’s like going to war without weapons.” As he walked with the help of a therapist to recover lost mobility during a monthlong hospitalization, 87-year-old Pedro Marcelo said, “I’m not afraid of dying, I just want to move a little bit better until the day for me to go arrives.” A study of blood samples in all Madrid nursing homes showed that 53% of the 55,000 residents live in facilities where more than half of residents have developed antibodies. “It’s sad to put it this way,” said Paz Membibre, who manages a dozen centers for the Vitalia Home group in or around the Spanish capital, “but the damage we suffered has protected us now.” How long immunity might last, however, is a question scientists are still trying to answer. World & Nation Britain becomes the first country to approve a fully tested COVID-19 vaccine, but its show of national pride raises EU hackles. Meanwhile, across the continent, infections often shoot up to dozens or even more than 100 in just a matter of 48 hours. In Spain, the biggest surges of cases and deaths are now in the southern Andalucía and central Castilla León regions that dodged the worst during the spring. In neighboring France, infections are now more spread out than during the spring, when they concentrated in hot spots. In Berlin, where 14 people recently died from the coronavirus in a nursing home of 90 residents, city officials said strict rules were not being applied. García Navarro said most of the affected facilities in Spain are trying to control the virus with staff shortages as care workers fall sick. In a few cases, he said, “they are still not complying with safety protocols.” In a scathing report into how thousands were abandoned in nursing homes, many without medical treatment, in Madrid and Barcelona in the spring, Amnesty International said this week that some of the same problems still exist, including health protocols that recommend prioritizing young people over older people. Bureaucracy and mismanagement have also played a role. An internal Spanish government analysis seen by the Associated Press lists 30 main errors that led to the deaths of more than 20,000 older patients with COVID-19 before mid-May. But its recommendations are still being revised with regional officials, and some have not been implemented.

Microwave energy probably made U.S. diplomats in Cuba ill, report finds

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-05/report-finds-microwave-energy-likely-made-us-diplomats-ill

A new report by a National Academy of Sciences committee has found that “directed” microwave radiation is the likely cause of illnesses among American diplomats in Cuba and China. The study commissioned by the State Department and released Saturday is the latest attempt to find a cause for the mysterious illnesses that started to emerge in late 2016 among U.S. personnel in Havana. The study found that “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible” explanation for symptoms that included intense head pressure, dizziness and cognitive difficulties. It found this explanation was more likely than other previously considered causes such as tropical disease or psychological issues. The study did not name a source for the energy and did not say it came as the result of an attack, though it did note that previous research on this type of injury was done in the former Soviet Union. In its report, the 19-member committee noted that it faced significant challenges in trying to get to the bottom of the medical mystery. Among them, not everyone reported the same symptoms, and the National Academy of Sciences research did not have access to all the previous studies on the illnesses, some of which are classified. “The committee found these cases quite concerning, in part because of the plausible role of directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy as a mechanism, but also because of the significant suffering and debility that has occurred in some of these individuals,” said committee chairman David Relman, a professor of medicine at Stanford University. “We as a nation need to address these specific cases as well as the possibility of future cases with a concerted, coordinated, and comprehensive approach.” The health effects were experienced by about two dozen Americans affiliated with the U.S. Embassy in Cuba as well as Canadian diplomats and personnel at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China, in early 2017. Some of the Americans have been critical of the U.S. government’s response to their health complaints, and at least one has filed suit against the State Department. Between late 2016 and May 2018, several U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Havana complained of health problems from an unknown cause. One U.S. government count put the number of American personnel affected at 26. Some reported hearing high-pitched sounds similar to crickets while at home or staying in hotels, leading to an early theory of a sonic attack.

A bleak outlook for millions facing cutoff of U.S. unemployment aid

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-05/a-bleak-outlook-for-millions-facing-cutoff-of-us-jobless-aid

Tina Morton recently faced a choice: pay her bills or buy a birthday gift for a child. Derrisa Green is falling further behind on rent. Sylvia Soliz has had her electricity cut off. Unemployment has forced aching decisions on millions of Americans and their families in the face of a rampaging viral pandemic that has closed shops and restaurants, paralyzed travel and left millions jobless for months. Now, their predicaments stand to grow bleaker yet if Congress fails to extend two unemployment programs that are set to expire the day after Christmas. If no agreement is reached on Capitol Hill, more than 9 million people will lose federal jobless aid that averages about $320 a week and in many cases is their only source of income. California Hollywood Boulevard is normally Los Angeles’ tourist strip. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is eerily empty Dec. 5, 2020 Green, 39, and her husband are among them. An end to their unemployment benefits would force them to miss more rent payments on their home in Dyer, Ind., near Chicago. The couple have eight children. Green’s husband is a self-employed truck driver whose business disappeared when the pandemic erupted in the spring. Only in October did he start to pick up occasional work. He now receives about $235 a week in unemployment aid. Even so, “all of our bills are late,” Green said. They’ve received several shutoff notices from utilities before managing to pay just before service was to be cut off. “That’s really scary,” Green said, “because what are we going to do when we lose the unemployment money?” The end of jobless aid is approaching at an especially perilous time. U.S. job growth slowed sharply in November, and the resurgence of COVID-19 cases appears to be out of control across the country. Even with the prospect of an effective vaccine being widely distributed in coming months, economists say the picture will worsen before it improves. Many foresee a net loss of jobs in December for the first time since April. On Friday, President-elect Joe Biden called on Congress to quickly approve a bipartisan $908-billion package that would establish a $300-a-week jobless benefit as well as send aid to states and localities, help schools and universities, revive subsidies for businesses and support transit systems and airlines. Details are still being worked out, but the outlines of a final bill could emerge soon. More than 20 million people are now receiving unemployment benefits. More than half are beneficiaries of two programs that were part of a rescue package Congress enacted in March. One program made self-employed and contract workers eligible for jobless aid for the first time and provided 39 weeks of support. The other program supplied 13 weeks of extended benefits to the 26 weeks that most states provide. About 9.1 million people who are receiving aid from those programs will be cut off on Dec. 26, according to a report from the Century Foundation. An additional 4.4 million are expected to exhaust all 39 weeks by year’s end. If Congress revives both programs, it would be a life-saver for Sylvia Soliz of Corpus Christi, Texas. Soliz, 36, after being unable to pay full rent for November and December, has received an eviction notice. She’s also just had her electricity cut off. Back in March, Soliz was laid off from her job as a nurse’s assistant at a senior living facility. She’s now receiving $414 in jobless aid every two weeks. With four children, it doesn’t go very far. “The day I get it, it’s already gone because my kids need so many things,” Soliz said. “Of course, I have to pay a portion to whatever bill I have, so that way I can stretch it out. But every time another check comes in, it’s another bill.” Soliz is applying for a new job, and she checks in with her old employer. So far, no luck. She also worries about contracting COVID-19. Soliz is hopeful that Congress will agree to provide more aid, but she feels “they are basically gambling with us.” A cutoff of jobless benefits now, with so many millions of Americans still needing aid, would be unusually early compared with previous recessions. In the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008-09, the government extended unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, and the additional aid lasted through 2013. When that program ended, about 1.3 million people lost benefits — a small fraction of the number who would lose aid this time. Other government protections will also expire at the end of this year, including a federal moratorium on evictions for renters. A suspension of payments on federal student loans was extended to the end of January. “I am very afraid of people facing homelessness — that’s our top concern,” said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “It’s a terrible unforced policy error to make. It will slow the recovery that we’re having by cutting off these benefits so early.” About one in six renters in the United States are behind on their rent, according to a survey from the Census Bureau. And 12% of adults say their families didn’t have enough to eat at some point in the past week, the survey found. That’s up from just 3.7% in 2019, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. A wrenching set of choices has confronted Keli Paaske, who lives in the Kansas City area. Since being furloughed in the spring from her sales job at a company that makes fire doors, Paaske, 56, has cut back her grocery budget. She thought she’d be called back to work once the virus waned. But when her boss phoned in August, it was with a different message: Her job had been eliminated. Paaske had hesitated to spend the $360 it would cost to euthanize her 15-year old dog, who had a brain tumor, before going through with it. Without unemployment aid, Paaske isn’t sure how she would manage. She may seek financial help from her parents, who are in their 80s, something she has resisted doing. If she doesn’t find a job by March, she said, she’ll stop leasing her car. Across the country, a cutoff of jobless aid would disproportionately affect Black Americans, according to the Century Foundation. About 18% of unemployment aid recipients are Black, the foundation said, though Black Americans make up just 12% of the workforce. More than 57% of recipients are white. Nearly 13% are Latino. (There is no demographic data on about one-fifth of recipients.) Tina Morton used to clean houses near where she lives in Winchester, Ky. But there’s been little work since the pandemic struck. Like many other single mothers, she has struggled trying to find another job while simultaneously caring for children — a son and two nephews she has custody of — who are attending school online at home. “Single parents cannot go out here and ... just find any job,” said Morton, 39. “We’ve got our kids here that are stuck at home.” Last week, Morton had to choose between paying a phone bill and buying one of her nephews a birthday present. She got him a present. If her unemployment aid ends, she expects to face more painful decisions. She’s particularly worried about her two nephews. “That’s what hurts me the most,” she said. “My job is to give them more — give them better than where they came from.”

Overburdened Idaho health facilities on brink of rationing care amid COVID-19 onslaught

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-05/overtaxed-idaho-health-facilities-on-brink-of-rationing-care

Soldiers triaging patients in parking lots in a capital city is normally the stuff of science fiction. Yet that’s the reality in Boise, Idaho, where troops direct people outside an urgent care clinic revamped into a facility for coronavirus patients as infections and deaths surge in Idaho and nationwide. Inside Primary Health Medical Group’s clinic, physician assistant Nicole Thomas works extra 12-hour shifts to help out. She dons goggles, an N-95 mask, a surgical mask over that, gloves and a body covering to examine 36 patients a day exhibiting possible COVID-19 symptoms. Some days, she says, half of them test positive. “I’ve had patients crying in the car because they think they’re going to die,” Thomas said last week, resting against a desk between patients. “There are some people that it’s just a mild cold, and there are some people in the ICU on life support. We don’t know, medicine-wise, how it’s going to affect them.” California L.A. Mayor Garcetti says the city is “on the brink” of new restrictions, but he also says he’d prefer more targeted interventions to stopping the coronavirus. July 19, 2020 What was once a facility with family practice doctors and an urgent care unit that treated things like cuts and colds has become a COVID-19 clinic, showing how a crush of coronavirus patients is straining intertwined healthcare systems. In a conservative state where many are resisting pandemic restrictions, overworked staff are getting sick themselves or quitting to avoid the stress. Idaho’s attempt to hold the virus in check is failing, health officials say. Just over 1,000 people have died from COVID-19 so far, about four to five times the number of annual deaths from flu and pneumonia. Confirmed infections have surpassed 100,000. Elective surgeries have been mostly halted to conserve bed space and staff. COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms have been sent home with monitoring devices to care for themselves. After Thanksgiving gatherings, officials fear a surge of infections that could force difficult choices about what to do with patients when room and staff to treat them run out. “When would we reach absolute capacity? I just don’t know. But we’re nervous,” said Barton Hill, vice president of St. Luke’s Health System, which has hospitals in southwestern and central Idaho. “I never dreamed that we would be challenged like this,” Steve Judy, chief operating officer of Primary Health Medical Group, said as he visited the clinic where Thomas works. He was interrupted by a young woman there for a COVID-19 test who wandered out of an exam area, looking confused. She had had blood drawn and wasn’t sure where she was supposed to be, she said through her mask, eyes glazed. Judy gently led her past a row of workers taking phone calls and back to the exam area. The clinic bustled with workers, supporting Thomas and two other physician assistants as they examined patients. Combined, they see nearly 110 people a day, ordering chest X-rays and blood tests to make diagnoses. Seventy others without symptoms get drive-through COVID-19 tests in the parking lot every day. Primary Health’s 20 clinics in southwestern Idaho normally have an urgent care unit on one side and family practice doctors on the other. Eight have been transformed into facilities that see only COVID-19 patients. It’s taking sick people at least two days to get an appointment for a test. Primary Health will turn three more facilities into COVID-19 clinics by Dec. 30 and has plans to change over more if needed. “We’re at the maximum,” said Dr. David Peterman, a pediatrician and chief executive of Primary Health Medical Group. “We are so close to rationing care here. We are probably 10 to 15 days away.” About 20% of his staffers are out because they’re isolating or have tested positive for the virus. Judy said he’s trying to fill 50 openings after workers couldn’t take the stress anymore and quit. He’s increased front office pay by $2.50, to $14 an hour. Calls to the clinics have increased from 30,000 a month before the pandemic to 80,000 now. The Boise clinic has a half-dozen workers taking calls. When they’re not on the phone, they package test kits. “We’re working them hard,” said Judy, who worries about his staff. “They’re almost all pulling overtime.” At St. Luke’s hospital system, increasing numbers of workers are out because of COVID-19, officials said. Besides canceling elective surgeries, the hospitals tried to save bed space by sending 160 patients — 140 with COVID-19 — home with devices to measure the oxygen levels in their blood. Now, hospitals are planning what to do if there aren’t enough workers or beds available in an entire region. Healthcare workers would have to choose who gets treatment and who doesn’t. “That’s really when we’re at risk for what’s called the ‘crisis standards,’” said Hill, noting that the state would decide when to institute them. “We’re very concerned in the next two weeks.” Idaho’s crisis plan divides the sick into categories, prioritizing those with life-threatening illnesses or injuries who are expected to survive and giving only comfort care to those who aren’t. Rural areas generally avoided large numbers of COVID-19 infections for months, but now they’re widespread. Recently, a surge of infections in southern Idaho filled hospital beds and forced some patients to be transferred to the Boise area. When people started getting sick in March, Republican Gov. Brad Little issued a stay-at-home order that lasted just over a month and stopped the virus’ spread. But unemployment skyrocketed from under 3% to nearly 12%. Restrictions gradually were lifted, but as infections and deaths surged again, Little reinstated some rules last month, including limiting gatherings to 10 or fewer people. He also activated 100 National Guard troops to free up medical workers, getting them trained on mobile testing support, facility decontamination and COVID-19 screenings. Nickolas Orr was one of two soldiers meeting patients in their cars outside the Primary Health clinic. “Some people do seem a little nervous,” he said. While Little was among the first governors to publicly wear a mask last spring, he’s declined to issue a statewide mandate, saying more people will wear them if it’s a choice. There’s plenty of resistance. About 64% of Idaho voters supported President Trump, who has been dismissive of mask wearing and ridiculed President-elect Joe Biden for wearing one during the campaign. Some sheriffs say they won’t enforce mask requirements. A lawmaker has compared Little to Hitler for issuing pandemic restrictions. The Republican-dominated Legislature plans legislation next month limiting the governor’s ability to declare emergencies. And in Boise, which has a mask mandate, protesters recently went into stores and restaurants without face coverings to complain that their rights were being violated. Meanwhile, inside the Primary Health clinic, Thomas, the physician assistant, put on sterilized protective equipment as workers sanitized an exam room before seeing the next patient. The clinic no longer has time to call everyone who tests positive for COVID-19. Most get a text message. Only those in high-risk groups with the greatest chance of dying get a phone call, that human voice. “Not infecting others is kind of the name of the game right now,” Thomas said. But she doesn’t have a lot of hope. “I think we are going to get busier and busier.”

Moscow opens dozens of coronavirus vaccination centers

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-05/moscow-opens-dozens-of-coronavirus-vaccination-centers

Thousands of doctors, teachers and others in high-risk groups began receiving COVID-19 vaccinations in Moscow on Saturday in a precursor to a sweeping Russia-wide immunization effort. The vaccinations come three days after President Vladimir Putin ordered the launch of a “large-scale” immunization campaign even though a Russian-designed vaccine has yet to complete the advanced studies needed to ensure its effectiveness and safety in line with established scientific protocols. The Russian leader said Wednesday that more than 2 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine will be available in the next few days, allowing authorities to offer jabs to medical workers and teachers across the country starting late next week. Moscow, which currently accounts for about a quarter of the country’s new daily infections, moved ahead of the curve, opening 70 vaccination facilities on Saturday. Doctors, teachers and municipal workers were invited to book a time to receive a shot, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that about 5,000 signed up in a few hours after the system began operating on Friday. Russia boasted that Sputnik V was the world’s “first registered COVID-19 vaccine” after the government gave it regulatory approval in early August. That move drew criticism from international experts, who pointed out that the vaccine had only been tested on several dozen people at the time. Science & Medicine When people talk about COVID-19 vaccines, they can sound like they’re speaking a foreign language. Don’t worry! Here’s your guide to vaccine vocabulary. Putin has shrugged off doubts about it, saying in August that one of his daughters were among the early vaccine recipients. Over the past months, Sputnik V has been offered to medical workers and teachers even as it was still in the middle of advanced trials. Several top officials said they also have received the shots, and earlier this week the Russian military began vaccinating crews of navy ships scheduled to depart on a mission. Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said Wednesday that more than 100,000 people in Russia already have received the shots. The free vaccine is offered to people ages 18 to 60 who don’t suffer from chronic illnesses and aren’t pregnant or breastfeeding. World & Nation Britain becomes the first country to approve a fully tested COVID-19 vaccine, but its show of national pride raises EU hackles. The two-dose Sputnik V vaccine was developed by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute. An advanced study among 40,000 volunteers was announced two weeks after the vaccine received government approval, and that is still ongoing. Last month, developers of the vaccine said interim analysis of trial data showed it was 91.4% effective. The conclusion was based on 39 infections among 18,794 study participants that received either the vaccine or a placebo, which is a much lower number of infections than Western drugmakers have looked at when assessing the effectiveness of their vaccines. Two other Russia-designed vaccines are also undergoing tests. On Wednesday, Britain became the first country in the West to authorize the use of a vaccine against the coronavirus developed by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech. Russia has been swept with a resurgence of the coronavirus this fall, with numbers of new infections exceeding the levels recorded early in the pandemic, but authorities so far have refrained from a tight lockdown imposed in the spring. On Saturday, Russia reported a new record high of daily infections of 28,782, including 7,993 in Moscow. The government task force has recorded a total of 42,684 virus-related deaths since the start of the outbreak. Russia’s total of over 2.4 million confirmed cases is currently the fourth-largest caseload in the world behind the United States, India and Brazil.

Kuwait votes for parliament amid economic and coronavirus challenges

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-05/kuwait-votes-for-parliament-amid-economic-virus-challenges

Kuwait began voting Saturday for its National Assembly, the first election since the death of its longtime ruling emir at a time the oil-rich nation struggles with serious economic problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. This tiny country’s hundreds of thousands of voters will select lawmakers for 50 seats in the parliament. However, Kuwait’s parliament has tamped down opposition to its ruling Al Sabah family since the 2011 Arab Spring protests that saw demonstrators storm the chamber. Parliaments typically don’t serve out their full terms in Kuwait, but this one did. Kuwaitis are voting at 102 schools across the country the size of New Jersey. Authorities said masks and social distancing would be required due to the pandemic. Several schools will allow those with active cases of the virus to vote, with the sick first receiving permission from the government to participate in person. The vote comes after the death in September of Kuwait’s ruler, the 91-year-old Sheik Sabah al Ahmed al Jabbar al Sabah. Sheik Nawaf al Ahmad al Sabah, 83, quickly took power without opposition. The outgoing parliament then approved Sheik Nawaf’s choice for crown prince, Sheik Meshal al Ahmad al Jaber, the 80-year-old deputy head of Kuwait’s National Guard. The new parliament will need to make decisions on a number of matters, perhaps none more important than Kuwait’s economy. This fall, the ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Kuwait for the first time in its history. The finance minister warned that the government soon wouldn’t be able to pay salaries. Kuwait’s national bank said the country’s deficit could hit 40% of its gross domestic product this year, the highest level since the financial devastation of the 1990 Iraqi invasion and subsequent Persian Gulf War. With crude oil prices having plummeted to just above $45 a barrel, other nearby Arab states took on debt, trimmed subsidies or introduced taxes to sustain their spending. Kuwait, however, did none of that. That’s not to say Kuwait will be begging for aid at international summits anytime soon. The Kuwait Investment Authority holds assets of $533 billion, according to the Las Vegas-based Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, making it the world’s fourth-largest such fund. The problem is Kuwait has no legal framework to deficit-spend beyond its current limit of $33 billion. It needs the country’s parliament to grant approval. But lawmakers probably will face a popular backlash as the public fears the money will be lost to corruption amid a series of high-profile cases shaking the country. Kuwait has the world’s sixth-largest known oil reserves. The country also hosts some 13,500 American troops, many at Camp Arifjan south of Kuwait City, which is also home to the forward command of U.S. Army Central.

New Jersey gala attended by Rep. Matt Gaetz that ignored COVID rules prompts restaurant closure

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-05/gala-ignites-political-dispute-over-covid-19-restrictions

A New Jersey restaurant that hosted a political gala put on by a New York Republican club was ordered temporarily closed Friday over potential violations of coronavirus guidelines. Photos and video posted on Twitter showed dozens of maskless partiers at the New York Young Republican Club event Thursday night in Jersey City, some of whom tweeted taunting messages to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. Among the attendees was U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, and conservative political activist James O’Keefe. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democrat, said in an emailed statement that the event at the Maritime Parc restaurant in Liberty State Park was “an egregious violation” of state coronavirus guidelines and that he was ordering the restaurant temporarily closed. “In Jersey City we take Covid enforcement very seriously, and this event appears to be an egregious violation of the governor’s executive orders, including capacity limitations and mandatory mask wearing,” Fulop wrote. “This event blatantly disregards the protections put in place to safeguard the community from further contagion and has put Jersey City and countless others at serious risk.” Politics Joe Biden says he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president. No one answered the phone at the restaurant. Gaetz didn’t respond to a text message Friday. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, has tightened restrictions on indoor gatherings recently in response to a surge in COVID-19 cases. Indoor dining is restricted to 25% of a restaurant’s capacity, and no indoor dining is allowed between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Indoor gatherings are limited to 10 people, with exceptions for events such as religious ceremonies. Travelers from out of state are urged to quarantine for 14 days, but Murphy has said the state is relying on the honor system for compliance. Gavin Wax, president of New York Young Republican Club, scoffed at the criticism online, saying the group had done nothing wrong. “We embrace life and living while you all cower in your pods worried about a disease with a 99%+ survivability rate,” he said in one tweet, referring to a pandemic that has killed more than 24,000 people in New York City alone and more than 17,000 in New Jersey. “The left wants you to live in a world where socializing and being with friends and loved ones is a crime and a sin,” he wrote. “They claim isolation is a virtue. Its sick.” Murphy criticized the New York Young Republicans Club for holding the gala in New Jersey, saying at a news briefing Friday that they “snuck” into Jersey City because they couldn’t find a venue that would take them in New York City. “There is no obvious attempt to enforce social distancing or face masks even though wearing masks indoors is mandatory at organized gatherings when not eating or drinking,” said Murphy, displaying a photo from the gala that showed people crowded around Gaetz for a photo. World & Nation The CDC is set to shorten the recommended length of quarantine for anyone exposed to a person who is positive for COVID-19. He referred to Gaetz as the “tall, handsome fella in the gray suit.” He called the gathering “beyond the pale,” especially for a congressman, and he purposely mispronounced Gaetz’s name as “Matt Putz.” “You are not welcome in New Jersey,” Murphy said, “and frankly I don’t ever want you back in this state.” Gaetz quickly responded on Twitter. “Thank you for calling me handsome, Governor!” he tweeted. “I’m only considered handsome in New Jersey, though. In Florida I’m barely a roundup 6.” Both New York and New Jersey have struggled lately with rising rates of the virus. In New Jersey, nearly 15,000 new cases of the virus were reported in the first three days of December alone. New York state reported 30,000. During his regular coronavirus briefing Friday, Cuomo said it was “so irresponsible for an elected official who makes laws to encourage people breaking laws,” in an apparent reference to Gaetz. “I want to see young Republicans grow into old Republicans,” he added. “This is about preventing deaths.”

With red carpets rolled up, the Oscar race goes virtual

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2020-12-06/with-red-carpets-rolled-up-the-oscar-race-goes-virtual

This is the time of year when Hollywood’s awards-season-industrial complex usually shifts into high gear. It’s a frothy, festive run of the year’s final premieres and screenings — all part of a carefully orchestrated dance to court tastemakers and, ultimately, academy voters. The movies may be finished -- picture locked -- but their Oscar fortunes are in flux right up until ballots are cast. And a glittering, glad-handing ecosystem of cocktails and Q&As works very hard to steer the conversation. This year, with many under quarantine, theaters shuttered in Los Angeles and New York and, well, some more pressing concerns than who’s campaigning for best supporting actor, awards season is operating in a strange COVID-19 vacuum with only a whiff of the stuff it thrives on: buzz. For Awards Daily founder Sasha Stone, who has been covering the Oscars since 2000, it’s like nothing she’s ever seen — an awards season without glamour, without red carpets, without anything that feels real. She compares this year’s race to the floating debris left by a sinking ship. “There’s no there there,” says Stone. “What’s missing is the ‘wow’ factor. That’s really what the Oscars have kind of been built on.” Awards There is still an awards season. And, as always, The Times will be right there to capture all of it, from those living in the spotlight to those working backstage on ‘The Envelope’ podcast. Dec. 2, 2020 Nevertheless, Oscar season is pushing ahead, despite the pandemic, despite a year where most of the biggest releases were postponed. The timetable has shifted two months: The Academy Awards are to be held April 25. And awards season, such as it is, has gone virtual. The Oscar race will Zoomed. Awards campaigns normally focused on doing everything they can to lure guild members and others to see their film on the big screen have had to accept that this year they’ll be watching in their living room, maybe on a laptop, potentially with a lot of pausing and probably with many glances at their phone. “The biggest challenge is: How are we going to get people to see the movies? Are they really going to watch them? What are they going to watch?” says Cynthia Swartz, one of the industry’s top Oscar campaign strategists. “Ninety-five percent of an academy campaign is getting people to see the movie, ideally on the big screen. Now you can’t get them to the big screen. Everyone’s seeing it at home.” Keeping any movie not named “Borat” in the zeitgeist has been nearly impossible this year, either because people are overburdened by the pandemic, movies lack a physical presence beyond a box on your TV screen or because viewers would rather just binge “The Queen’s Gambit.” Swartz, who has helped steer campaigns for everything from “Boyhood” to “Black Panther,” acknowledged, “Right now, it’s hard for films to feel real and to feel like they’re sticking.” The whole rhythm of the season’s calendar, from one awards group to another, is also off kilter. With Oscar nominations ballots usually due in early January, most voters plow through screeners over the holidays. Movies The Academy Awards were pushed to April after the coronavirus outbreak forced production to stop and theater closures. Other awards shows follow suit. Jan. 5, 2021 “It’s going to be a challenge to keep your movie sort of in the awareness all the way to April or to March, when voting happens,” said Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, whose contenders this year include the dementia drama “The Father,” with Anthony Hopkins. “It’s going to be a very different journey between now and the end of April.” It has undoubtedly reshuffled the usual kinds of movies in the race. Many of the films that might have been among the favorites this year -- Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” or Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” -- have been postponed. That’s left open leading positions for smaller films that might have had to fight harder for the spotlight -- among them Chloe Zhao’s open-road ode “Nomadland,” Lee Isaac Chung’s Korean-American family drama “Minari” and Regina King’s fictional gathering of ‘60s Black icons “One Night in Miami.” For some, it’s a tantalizing possibility that this year’s unusual circumstances could expand the traditional notions — and frustrating restrictions — of what is an Oscar movie. “It’s going to be interesting because there were no blockbusters. We didn’t have any blockbusters this year, so how do we know what was a hit. I’m curious if it will skew more indie-cinephile,” says Steven Soderbergh, whose Meryl Streep-led “Let Them All Talk” is among the many films going straight to streaming. “The question is: Do you embrace that and say: ‘That was this year,’ and not be pants-on-fire about it. Just go: That was this year.” It’s also left the field for Netflix to dominate. The streamer, which has fiercely sought a best-picture win after close calls with “Roma”and “The Irishman,” this year has at least three best-picture candidates, including David Fincher’s “Mank,” Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and George C. Wolfe’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” One of few sure things is a posthumous nomination for Chadwick Boseman for his performance in “Ma Rainey.” This year, the film academy relaxed its requirement of a theatrical run for nominees — a change some are already lobbying to make permanent. Movies There are still good movies to celebrate, no matter how we see them, so make the 2021 Oscars a PSA for an embattled film industry. Oct. 12, 2020 Last Oscars, the win for “Parasite,” the first non-English language film to take best picture, was heavily fueled by social-media support. This year, in the absence of real conversation, the race will likely be won online, making critics and pundits even more influential. Not everyone is sorry that awards season — an increasingly bloated, overlong, high-priced slog from September to February — has been turned upside down. Publicists used to racing from event to event can do it this year with a click, while wearing sweatpants. Costs will be lower. Stars less worn out. Maybe, some hope, it will slim down for good. Meanwhile, Zoom boxes are getting more dressed up all the time. For the launch of the black-and-white “Mank,” Netflix outfitted its video conference in handsome monochrome. For a Q&A for his dystopic space drama “The Midnight Sky,” George Clooney could track down a better-than-average moderator via video conference: Cate Blanchett. The IFP Gotham Awards, one of the first big parties of the year, will livestream their Jan. 11 show from the cavernous Cipriani’s in Manhattan, with guests arranged virtually on tables. To pull off the digital trick, organizers are relying on an online poker interface. On the bright side, said producer Jeffrey Sharp, executive director of the Independent Filmmaker Project, more people will see the typically untelevised ceremony than ever before. “If there are any lessons learned, we’re happy to pass them on to the next guy. I do feel like we’re all in this together,” says Sharp. “This year, everyone’s trying to figure it out, and I think deserves credit for at least trying to keep the ball rolling.”

Data show Americans couldn't resist Thanksgiving travel

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-03/data-shows-americans-couldnt-resist-thanksgiving-travel

Americans couldn’t resist the urge to gather for Thanksgiving, driving only slightly less than a year ago and largely ignoring the pleas of public health experts, who begged them to forgo holiday travel to help contain the COVID-19 pandemic, data from roadways and airports show. The nation’s unwillingness to tamp down on travel offered a warning in advance of Christmas and New Year’s as virus deaths and hospitalizations hit new highs a week after Thanksgiving. U.S. deaths from the outbreak eclipsed 3,100 on Thursday, obliterating the single-day record set last spring. Vehicle travel in early November was as much as 20% lower than a year earlier, but it surged around the holiday and peaked on Thanksgiving Day at only about 5% less than the pandemic-free period in 2019, according to StreetLight Data, which provided an analysis to the Associated Press. “People were less willing to change their behavior than any other day during the pandemic,” said Laura Schewel, founder of StreetLight Data. Airports also saw some of their busiest days of the pandemic, though air travel was much lower than last year. The Transportation Security Administration screened more than 1 million passengers on four separate days during the Thanksgiving travel period. Since the pandemic gutted travel in March, there has been only one other day when the number of travelers topped 1 million — Oct. 18. Travel & Experiences How to travel this holiday season by plane, train and car, and how to safely stay in a hotel or a rental. If you’re staying local, we have ideas for how to spend the time. “If only a small percentage of those travelers were asymptomatically infected, this can translate into hundreds of thousands of additional infections moving from one community to another,” Dr. Cindy Friedman, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official, said this week during a briefing. Wide swaths of the country saw a sudden influx of people arriving from university campuses in the days leading up to the holiday, according to a data visualization of anonymous cellphone data from a firm called Tectonix. The CDC has urged people to stay home for the holidays, but officials acknowledged that many people would not heed that advice and advised them to get tested before and after trips. Friedman said that this year’s holidays presented “tough choices” for many families. The travelers included some elected officials who preached against trips. The mayors of Denver and Austin, Texas, faced fierce backlashes for traveling after telling other people to stay home. Others had no regrets. Trananda Graves, who runs a travel planning company in Keller, Texas, took a Thanksgiving road trip with her family to Nashville. It was a chance for her daughter to connect with relatives as they shared recipes, and Graves said everyone’s mood was uplifted. “It was just a break to get away from home,” Graves said. “We work at home, we go to school at home.” She decided to drive to meet extended family after seeing that flights were crowded and said her family followed guidance to avoid spreading infections. But infections, even from small Thanksgiving gatherings, have begun to stream in around the country, adding another burden to health departments that are already overwhelmed. Travel & Experiences This new phase in the pandemic means new rules for hotels and other travel providers. “This uptick here is really coming at a time when everyone’s exhausted,” said Don Lehman, a spokesman for the Warren County Public Health Department in Upstate New York. The county concluded that Thanksgiving gatherings or travel probably caused 40% of the 22 cases it reported in the last two days. That means contact tracers have to figure out where people came from or traveled to and contact health officials in those places. Lehman said it adds “a lot of legwork” to the contact-tracing process. Graves said she expects an increase in the travel planning business around the holidays. Several groups have already inquired about going to Las Vegas to celebrate the end of an arduous year. And her personal holiday plans? After the Thanksgiving trip, she said, “now we are considering visiting my mother for Christmas.”

Among first acts, Biden to call for 100 days of mask wearing

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-03/among-first-acts-biden-to-call-for-100-days-of-mask-wearing

Joe Biden said Thursday that he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president, stopping just short of the nationwide mandate he’s pushed before to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The move marks a notable shift from President Trump, whose own skepticism of mask wearing has contributed to a politicization of the issue. That’s made many people reticent to embrace a practice that public health experts say is one of the easiest ways to manage the pandemic, which has killed more than 276,000 Americans. The president-elect has frequently emphasized mask wearing as a “patriotic duty” and during the campaign floated the idea of instituting a nationwide mask mandate, which he later acknowledged would be beyond the ability of the president to enforce. Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Biden said he would make the request of Americans on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. “On the first day I’m inaugurated, I’m going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask — not forever, just 100 days. And I think we’ll see a significant reduction” in the virus, Biden said. Politics President-elect Joe Biden is facing increasing pressure from competing Democratic factions as he finalizes his choice for secretary of Defense. Biden also said he asked Dr. Anthony Fauci to stay on in his administration, “in the exact same role he’s had for the past several presidents,” as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. The president-elect said he’s asked Fauci to be a “chief medical advisor” as well as part of his COVID-19 advisory team. Regarding a coronavirus vaccine, Biden said he’d be “happy” to get inoculated in public to assuage any concerns about its efficacy and safety. Three former presidents — Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — have said they’d also get vaccinated publicly to show that it’s safe. “People have lost faith in the ability of the vaccine to work,” Biden said, adding that “it matters what a president and the vice president do.” In the same interview, Biden also weighed in on reports that Trump is considering pardons of himself and his allies. “It concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice,” Biden said. Biden committed that his Justice Department will “operate independently” and that whomever he chooses to lead the department will have the “independent capacity to decide who gets investigated.” “You’re not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons, nor are you going to see in our administration the approach to making policy by tweets,” he said. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris added that any decision coming out of the Department of Justice “should be based on facts, should be based on the law — it should not be influenced by politics.”

Alison Lurie, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, dies at 94

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-04/alison-lurie-prize-winning-novelist-dead-at-94

Alison Lurie, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist whose satirical and cerebral tales of love and academia included the marital saga “The War Between the Tates” and the comedy of Americans abroad “Foreign Affairs,” has died at age 94. Lurie, a professor emerita at Cornell University, died Thursday of natural causes, said her husband and partner, Edward Hower. Praised by the New York Times as one of the country’s “most able and witty novelists,” Lurie broke through commercially in 1974 with “The War Between the Tates” and received her highest acclaim for “Foreign Affairs,” winner of the 1985 Pulitzer. Set in London, Lurie’s novel was consciously based on old-fashioned narratives of manners and customs, with one character imagining himself trapped in a Henry James story. The protagonists were Corinth University professor Virginia “Vinnie” Martin, an Anglophile and middle-aged scholar of children’s literature so self-contained that her closest companion is an invisible dog, and her wayward young colleague, Fred Turner, who takes up with the impulsive British actress Rosemary Radley as his marriage falls apart back home. “Before he met Rosemary, Fred didn’t really exist for anyone here except a few other academic ghosts,” Lurie wrote. “Now the city is alive for him and he alive in it. Everything pulses with meaning, with history and possibility, and Rosemary most of all. When he is with her he feels he holds all of England, the best of England, in his arms.” Books The prolific novelist wrote “Perestroika in Paris,” about a horse and a dog in France, because it was soothing to focus on “kindness and trying to get by.” Dec. 3, 2020 Lurie’s novel was adapted into a 1993 television movie starring Joanne Woodward as Vinnie and Eric Stoltz as Fred. “The War Between the Tates” became a 1977 TV production featuring Elizabeth Ashley and Richard Crenna. Academics and artists were often featured in her work, which combined storytelling with social and intellectual commentary. Her first book, “Love and Friendship,” centered on a professor’s wife in New England who has an intense affair with a school musician. In “The War Between the Tates,” a Corinth professor’s adultery upends his marriage and scatters husband and wife into the cultural upheavals of the late 1960s. Her other books included the novels “The Last Resort” and “Real People,” the nonfiction works “The Language of Clothes” and “The Language of Architecture” and “Familiar Spirits,” a memoir about her friendship with the prize-winning poet James Merrill and his companion David Jackson. Her most recent novel, “Truth and Consequences,” came out in 2005. Her last published book, the literary essay collection “Words and Worlds,” was released in 2019. In her fiction, Lurie drew openly from her own life. Corinth was an Ivy League school that closely approximated Cornell, and she shared Vinnie’s love for England and expertise in children’s literature, editing such compilations as “The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales” and “The Heavenly Zoo.” She wrote about Vietnam War protests and participated in them. In 1985, she was arrested during a rally at Cornell that called on the school to sell off its investments in companies doing business with South Africa’s racist government. Books The late author of acclaimed novels “The Transit of Venus” and “The Great Fire” is celebrated in a new collection of her witty 20th century stories. Nov. 4, 2020 Married in 1948 to Jonathan Bishop, an academic and son of the poet John Bishop Peale, she separated from him around the time “The War Between the Tates” was published and later married Hower, an author and Cornell literature professor. She had three sons with Bishop. Born in Chicago and raised in White Plains, N.Y., Lurie was the child of liberal, educated parents and grew up reading Jane Austen and other British authors because there “were not many models for the American woman novelist, except for the Southern school,” she told the Associated Press in 1985. She studied history and politics at Radcliffe College and spent much of the 1950s raising her children, writing stories and poems and working with the Poets’ Theater, where members included Merrill and John Ashbery. She and Bishop lived in Amherst, Mass., and Los Angeles, both of which became settings for her fiction, before moving to Ithaca, New York in the early 1960s. “Love and Friendship” came out in 1962 and got right to a favorite theme. “The day on which Emily Stockwell Turner fell out of love with her husband,” Lurie wrote in the book’s opening sentence, “began much like other days.” Books Zapata, who died this month, wrote 1979’s “The Vampire of Colonia Roma,” a turning point for LGBTQ culture at the height of Mexico’s authoritarian regime. Nov. 18, 2020

Fatal shooting of young Black man roils liberal town in Oregon

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-03/fatal-shooting-of-black-teen-roils-liberal-town-in-oregon

The killing of a young Black man last month by a white man who complained that he was playing loud music has roiled Ashland, Ore., forcing the liberal college town that is famous for its Shakespeare festival to take a hard look at race relations. The death of Aidan Ellison, 19, added another name to the list of Black men and women whose killings have sparked a nationwide reckoning with racism and fueled a surge in a Black Lives Matter movement. “What can be said about this teenager who was full of spirit? He was just getting started on his lifelong journey when he was taken from us,” Ellison’s mother, Andrea Wofford, said in a statement. “Enough is enough. How many Black men have to die before this community takes hate crimes seriously?” On Nov. 23, Robert Keegan fired a single shot into Ellison’s chest after complaining about the music late at night in a motel parking lot, authorities said. He is being held without bail after pleading not guilty to second-degree murder, manslaughter and other charges. Keegan, 47, is from the nearby small town of Talent, which was heavily damaged in a wildfire in September. He and Ellison were staying at the motel but apparently did not know each other. Keegan said that Ellison punched him in the face and that he fired in self-defense, according to court records. But a police officer reported that Keegan had no visible injuries to his face and that an autopsy showed no injuries to Ellison’s hands that would have indicated he had hit Keegan. Ashland Police Chief Tighe O’Meara said investigators have not found any evidence that would support bias crime charges against Keegan. But Mayor-elect Julie Akins said she believes racism was behind the shooting. “I can speak as a member of the white-bodied community in saying it is past time we take stock of systemic racism, which continues to cause the death of our brothers and sisters of color,” Akins said in a statement. “It’s not a coincidence that a white man, according to police, chose to take the life of a young Black man for the offense of playing his music. This is at the root of racism.” The FBI is working with the Ashland Police Department to assess whether federal laws may have been violated, the Police Department announced Thursday. On Wednesday evening, a crowd of people stood on a lawn outside the Jackson County Justice Building in nearby Medford for a vigil for Ellison. Several Black men and women spoke of how they had been racially profiled or stigmatized, and they mourned for the young life that was snuffed out. Ashland, a city of 21,000 that lies at the foot of a mountain range near the California border, is home to Southern Oregon University and hosts the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which draws hundreds of thousands of people each year from around the country for plays. Sprinkled with cafes and trendy restaurants, Ashland is considered a hip town in a conservative part of Oregon. In keeping with the Shakespeare theme, many of the community’s buildings have Tudor-style architecture. The motel where the shooting happened is the Stratford Inn, recalling Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-Upon-Avon, England. Only 1.4% of Ashland residents are Black, and 92.5% are white, according to the U.S. census. Oregon has a racist history; the state constitution once prohibited Blacks from living there. Consequently the state has a disproportionately low Black population compared with much of the rest of the United States. Black activists in Ashland say the killing has exposed the town’s undercurrent of racism. “Ashland likes to believe that it is a utopia, but it isn’t,” activist Precious Edmonds told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “I don’t feel more safe because I’m here in Ashland. And unfortunately, Aidan’s murder is just an example of why that is the case.” Ellison’s death recalled the killing exactly eight years earlier of Jordan Davis, a Black 17-year-old high school student, who was gunned down by a white man in Florida after an argument over loud music. Michael Dunn was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. The Oregon shooting has attracted national attention. A lobby group headed by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who survived being shot in the head in 2011, called the slaying “senseless.” “Listening to music should never end in death. The presence of a gun turns disputes deadly, and the victims are disproportionately people of color,” the group said on Facebook.

Stocks' late stumble leaves S&P 500 just short of a record high

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-03/late-stumble-leaves-s-p-500-just-short-of-a-record-high

U.S. stock indexes closed mostly higher Thursday after a late stumble pulled the Standard & Poor’s 500 index just short of its third consecutive all-time high. The benchmark index ended the day down 0.1%, though it’s still on track for its second weekly gain. Stocks on Wall Street are continuing to coast after their rocket ride last month powered by hopes for coming COVID-19 vaccines. The Nasdaq composite set a record high for the second straight day. Treasury yields mostly declined, a reversal from earlier in the week. A couple of reports on the economy helped support stocks. One showed that growth in the U.S. services sector, including healthcare and retail, was slightly stronger last month than economists expected. A separate report said fewer U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week than forecast, though economists cautioned that the number may have been distorted by the Thanksgiving holiday. Investors have also been encouraged this week by signs that Democrats and Republicans in Washington may get past their bitter partisanship to reach a deal to provide more financial support for the economy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke with each other Thursday, the day after Pelosi signaled a willingness to make major concessions in search of a coronavirus rescue package. President-elect Joe Biden urged Congress on Wednesday to pass a relief bill now, with more aid to come next year. “There’s a lot of optimism being built into the market right now,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA. “Investors are sort of keeping their fingers crossed that we come up with a stimulus package, no matter the size.” The S&P 500 slipped 2.29 points to 3,666.72. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 85.73 points, or 0.3%, to 29,969.52. The Nasdaq composite advanced 27.82 points, or 0.2%, to 12,377.18. Small-company stocks made out better than the broader market. The Russell 2000 index climbed 10.67 points, or 0.6%, to 1,848.70. Momentum across markets has slowed after the S&P 500 surged 10.8% last month on hopes that one or more coronavirus vaccines will get the global economy closer to normal next year. The burst of optimism boosted stocks of travel companies, banks and smaller businesses in particular — companies that have been among the most harshly punished during the pandemic. “It’s pretty clear that investors are looking at some of those areas that would benefit from a more complete reopening,” said David Lefkowitz, head of Americas equities at UBS Global Wealth Management. Now that stock indexes are back at all-time highs, worries about the still-raging pandemic are making further big gains more difficult. Governments around the world are considering the approval of several coronavirus vaccines, and a U.S. rollout could begin this month if regulators approve. Britain has already approved emergency use of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. But vaccines would initially go out only to protect healthcare workers and others who are at high risk. In the meantime, coronavirus case counts and hospitalizations continue to surge. That has governments around the world bringing back varying degrees of restrictions on businesses and consumers worried about their own health. That, in turn, is threatening the economic recovery that got underway in the spring. The Labor Department said 712,000 workers applied for jobless benefits nationwide last week. That’s an improvement from the 787,000 of the previous week, but it still towers over the roughly 225,000 weekly before the pandemic struck. Concerns about the potential economic fallout from more restrictions on businesses has intensified the pressure on Washington to deliver more aid. Still, Democrats and Republicans have been arguing for months without much progress. “Ideally we would get some kind of fiscal support sooner rather than later,” Lefkowitz said. “The big news is there’s more of a line of sight on the fact that the economy will likely get back to full strength.” On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin underscored the importance of such relief during a House Financial Services Committee hearing. The economy has been struggling more since extra unemployment benefits and other stimulus approved earlier this year by Congress expired. Ralph Lauren led the gainers in the S&P 500 on Thursday, vaulting 8.7%. Several travel-related companies also finished near the top of the leaderboard, clawing back more of their precipitous losses from earlier in the pandemic. American Airlines Group rose 8.3%, Norwegian Cruise Line gained 8.6%, and United Airlines climbed 6.8%. All three, though, remain down more than 40% for 2020. Boeing surged 6% after Ireland’s Ryanair announced that it will order 75 more of the aircraft manufacturer’s 737 Max jets, a vote of confidence for the troubled Max from one of Europe’s biggest budget airlines. The plane was grounded in March 2019 after two crashes killed 346 people. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 0.91% from 0.94%. European stock markets closed mostly lower. Markets in Asia were mixed.

Survivors remember Pearl Harbor at home this year amid virus

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-03/survivors-remember-pearl-harbor-at-home-this-year-amid-virus

Navy sailor Mickey Ganitch was getting ready to play in a Pearl Harbor football game as the sun came up on Dec. 7, 1941. Instead, he spent the morning — still wearing his football padding and brown team shirt — scanning the sky as Japanese planes rained bombs on the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Seventy-nine years later, the COVID-19 pandemic is preventing Ganitch and other survivors from attending an annual ceremony remembering those killed in the attack that launched the United States into World War II. The 101-year-old has attended most years since the mid-2000s but will have to observe the moment from California this year because of the health risks. “That’s the way it goes. You got to ride with the tide,” Ganitch said in a telephone interview from his home in San Leandro, Calif. Nearly eight decades ago, Ganitch’s USS Pennsylvania football team was scheduled to face off against the USS Arizona team. As usual, they donned their uniforms aboard their ships because there was nowhere to change near the field. The pigskin showdown never happened. The aerial assault began at 7:55 a.m., and Ganitch scrambled from the ship’s living compartment to his battle station about 70 feet above the main deck. His job was to serve as a lookout and report “anything that was suspicious.” He saw a plane coming over the top of a nearby building. Sailors trained the ship’s guns on the aircraft and shot it down. “I was up there where I could see it,” Ganitch said. The Pennsylvania was in dry dock at the time, which protected it from the torpedoes that pummeled so many other vessels that day. It was one of the first to return fire on the attacking planes. Even so, the Pennsylvania lost 31 men. Ganitch said a 500-pound bomb missed him by just 45 feet. He didn’t have time to think and did what he had to do. “You realize that we’re in the war itself and that things had changed,” he said. The Arizona suffered a much worse fate, losing 1,177 Marines and sailors as it quickly sank after being pierced by two bombs. More than 900 men remain entombed on the ship that rests on the seafloor in the harbor. Altogether, more than 2,300 U.S. troops died in the attack. They’re why Ganitch likes returning to Pearl Harbor for the annual remembrance ceremony on Dec. 7. “We’re respecting them by being there, and showing up and honoring them. Cause they’re really the heroes,” Ganitch said. But the health risks to the aging survivors of the attack and other World War II veterans mean none of them will gather at Pearl Harbor this year. The National Park Service and Navy, which jointly host the event, also have closed the ceremony to the public to limit its size. The gathering, featuring a moment of silence, a flyover in missing man formation and a speech by the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, will be livestreamed instead. World & Nation Retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Dec. 7, 2018 Ganitch served the remainder of the war on the Pennsylvania, helping in the U.S. recapture of the Alaskan islands of Attu and Kiska. The battleship also bombarded Japanese positions to help with the amphibious assaults of Pacific islands like Kwajalein, Saipan and Guam. Ganitch remained in the Navy for more than 20 years. Afterward, he briefly worked in a bowling alley before becoming the shop foreman at a fishnet manufacturing plant. Along the way, he had four children, 13 grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren and nine great-great grandchildren. He and his wife, now 90, have been married for 57 years. Ganitch still shows glimpses of his days as a running guard protecting his quarterback: He recently crouched down to demonstrate his football stance for visiting journalists. Kathleen Farley, California chairwoman of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, said many survivors are already talking about going to Hawaii next year for the 80th anniversary if it’s safe by then. Farley, whose late father served on the USS California and spent three days after the attack picking up bodies, has been attending for two decades. “I know deep down in my heart that one of these days, we’re not going to have any survivors left,” she said. “I honor them while I still have them and I can thank them in person.”

COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in U.S. smash records for a single day

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-03/us-virus-deaths-top-3-100-in-a-single-day-for-the-first-time

The U.S. logged more than 3,100 COVID-19 deaths in a single day Wednesday — more than 20% higher than the previous record set last spring — while the number of Americans hospitalized with the coronavirus eclipsed 100,000 for the first time and new cases are topping 200,000 a day, according to figures released Thursday. The three benchmarks showed a country slipping deeper into crisis, with perhaps the worst to come, in part because of the delayed effects from Thanksgiving, when millions of Americans disregarded warnings to stay home and celebrate only with members of their household. Across the U.S., the surge has swamped hospitals with patients and left nurses and other healthcare workers shorthanded and burned out. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced a stay-at-home order affecting most of California. Nov. 30, 2020 “The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they are going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation,” Dr. Robert Redfield, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday. Health authorities had warned that the numbers could fluctuate strongly before and after Thanksgiving, as they often do around holidays and weekends, when figures often drop because of reporting delays, then rise sharply a few days later as state and local agencies catch up with the backlog. Still, deaths, hospitalizations and cases in the U.S. have been on a fairly steady rise for weeks, sometimes breaking records for days on end. California Los Angeles issued a modified stay-at-home order Wednesday night mirroring new L.A. County rules. “Just be smart and stay apart,” Mayor Garcetti said. Dec. 2, 2020 The U.S. recorded 3,157 deaths on Wednesday, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. That’s more than the number of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, and it shattered the old mark of 2,603, set April 15, when the New York metropolitan area was the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak. The number of people in the hospital likewise set an all-time high Wednesday, according to the COVID Tracking Project. It has more than doubled over the past month. And the number of newly confirmed infections climbed just past 200,000 Wednesday for the second time in less than a week, by Johns Hopkins’ count.

Trump expected to flex pardon powers on his way out the door

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-03/trump-expected-to-flex-pardon-powers-on-way-out-door

Advocates and lawyers anticipate a flurry of clemency action from President Trump in the coming weeks that could test the limits of presidential pardon power. Trump is said to be considering a slew of pardons and commutations before he leaves office, including potentially members of his family, former aides and even himself. While it is not unusual for presidents to sign controversial pardons on their way out the door, Trump has made clear that he has no qualms about intervening in the cases of friends and allies whom he believes have been treated unfairly, including his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn. The list of potential candidates is long and colorful: Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, imprisoned for financial crimes as part of the Russia investigation; George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, just like Flynn; Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka “Joe Exotic,” who starred in the the Netflix series “Tiger King”; and former contractors convicted in a Baghdad firefight that killed more than a dozen civilians, including women and children. Trump, long worried about potential legal exposure after he leaves office, has expressed worry to confidants in recent weeks that he, his family or his business might be targeted by President-elect Joe Biden’s Justice Department, although Biden has made clear he won’t be part of any such decisions. Nonetheless, Trump has had informal conversations with allies about how he might be able to protect his family, though he has not taken any steps to do so. His adult children haven’t requested pardons nor do they feel they need them, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters. Politics A self-pardon would outrage Democrats, but it would be good for the new president. Trump has also discussed potentially shielding himself, the New York Times first reported. In a video posted on Facebook on Wednesday, he made a glancing reference to his potential vulnerabilities. “Now I hear that these same people that failed to get me in Washington have sent every piece of information to New York so that they can try to get me there,” he said. The speculation prompted a slew of preemptive pushback from critics. “Typically if someone is being given a pardon it suggests they may have committed a crime. That’s not something I would want to have associated with my family,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), a frequent critic of Trump. Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer decried the notion of the president asking staff whether he can issue preemptive pardons for himself, his family members and his attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, with whom Trump has discussed potential action. “There’s a simple answer: No. No, Mr. President, that would be a gross abuse of the presidential pardon authority,” Schumer said. Presidents enjoy expansive pardon powers when it comes to federal crimes. That includes granting clemency to people who have not yet been charged, as President Ford did in 1974 when he pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon. But presidents cannot issue pardons for state crimes nor can they sidestep the law by pardoning people for crimes that have not yet occurred, according to legal experts. It remains unclear whether a president has the power to pardon himself. No one has tried. Politics The Justice Department is investigating a secret alleged scheme to lobby White House officials for a pardon as well as a related potential plot to offer a hefty political contribution in exchange for clemency. A decades-old opinion by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel suggests presidents cannot pardon themselves because it would require them to serve as judges in their own cases, but it also posits that a president could declare himself unable to serve, transfer power to his vice president and receive a pardon that way. Presidents often make controversial grants of clemency to friends and donors as they leave office: Bill Clinton pardoned wealthy financier Marc Rich, and Ronald Reagan pardoned New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. But Trump’s position is notable given the sheer number of former aides and allies who have been imprisoned, indicted or are facing legal jeopardy. They include Manafort, Manafort deputy Rick Gates, the president’s longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone, his former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and his former lawyer Michael Cohen. Stone and Flynn are among those Trump already has granted clemency. In most administrations, 99% of those who receive pardons are people the public never hears of, while the remaining 1% receive 99% of the attention, said Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt. But Trump’s interest in celebrities and high-profile figures has thrown those percentages off-kilter. “You can see the appeal of the pardon power to someone like him,” Kalt said. “It’s the one thing where the president says it and it gets done. He doesn’t have to deal with the ‘deep state.’ He doesn’t have to go through congressional oversight or judicial review.” In previous administrations, pardons have gone through a formal review process at the Justice Department in which lawyers carefully examine cases before making recommendations to the White House. Trump has largely sidestepped that process — instead relying on a more haphazard approach that has favored candidates whose cases have resonated with him personally or that have been championed by celebrities like Kim Kardashian West. As the results of last month’s election have become clear, those seeking pardons before Trump leaves office have redoubled their efforts to garner White House attention, leaning on high-profile Washington lawyers, re-upping PR efforts and, in the case of Papadopoulos, writing a book, appearing on Fox News and speaking to news outlets. Politics In his final days, President Trump weighs pardons as he rages against the election that cost him a second term. “I simply want the facts to get out about exactly what happened in my situation and for the American public to determine its logical conclusion. Which I hope is a pardon. I do not expect it, but I would be honored to accept one,” he told the Associated Press. Giuliani, meanwhile, has spoken directly with the president about a pardon. The two men have had preliminary conversations about the topic, but it is unclear how serious those have been. Beyond the bold-face names, however, are the regular people, behind bars, who have tried to make the case that they were unfairly sentenced or deserve a second chance. “So many people are crying out for help,” said Alice Marie Johnson, who had been serving a life sentence without parole until Trump commuted her sentence in 2018 after her case was championed by Kardashian West. Since then, Trump has featured Johnson’s story in a Super Bowl ad and pardoned her during this year’s Republican National Convention. Johnson, who has already successfully lobbied the president to take action on the cases of several other people, said she again met with Trump at the White House several weeks ago to present additional cases, all for people with “just incredible rehabilitation and incredible prison records.” “Personally, I’m hoping to see people home before Christmas,” she said. “Families around the country are praying for a Christmas miracle.” The White House did not respond to questions and Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said she’d “heard no mention of any pardons in any conversations I’ve had in the White House” other than Flynn. Trump has so far used his clemency power less often than any president in modern history, according to Justice Department data compiled by the Pew Research Center. It shows he has granted clemency 44 times, less than any other president since at least William McKinley. “You’ve got over 13,000 petitions filed by all these people who followed the rules,” submitting applications, having people write letters on their behalf and waiting years for their cases to be processed, said Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and professor at the University of St. Thomas. He has participated in several meetings at the White House during Trump’s term as officials brainstormed potential changes to the formal clemency process. “For those people that should be free,” he said, Trump’s friends-and-family approach to pardons is “a deep and real tragedy.”

Thousands lose power as fire danger looms in Southern California

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-02/power-goes-out-as-fire-danger-looms-in-southern-california

Southern California utilities cut the power to tens of thousands of customers to avoid the threat of wildfires as the region found itself whipped by Santa Ana winds that could turn sparks into catastrophes. Red flag warnings of extreme fire danger were in place Thursday throughout much of the region because of low humidity, bone-dry brush and the winds, which sweep down from the interior with sustained gusts of up to 35 mph, reaching 50 mph to 70 mph at times, the National Weather Service said. The warnings are in place into Saturday, with the winds at their greatest overnight and in early morning hours, the weather service said. Utilities in the populous region began cutting power Wednesday to customers as a precaution against gusts blowing tree limbs into electrical equipment or knocking down power lines, which in recent years have sparked devastating wildfires. Southern California Edison had cut power to about 15,000 homes and businesses by late Wednesday night and was considering de-energizing lines serving a total of about 271,000 customers in seven counties throughout the windy period, which could last into Saturday. Housing & Homelessness After wildfires that ravaged Santa Rosa and Paradise, residents who lost homes have seen none of the $1.3 billion in federal funding earmarked for relief. It was one of the utility’s largest precautionary blackouts. San Diego Gas & Electric had pulled the plug on about 24,000 customers by Wednesday night, with 73,000 more in the crosshairs. “We recognize losing power is disruptive, and we sincerely thank our customers for their patience and understanding,” the utility said. California already has experienced its worst-ever year for wildfires. More than 6,500 square miles have been scorched, a total larger than the combined area of Connecticut and Rhode Island. At least 31 people have been killed and 10,500 homes and other structures damaged or destroyed. The latest fire threat comes as much of California plunges deeper into drought. Virtually all of Northern California is in severe or extreme drought while nearly all of Southern California is abnormally dry or worse. “Some years there’s some rain that tamps down the fire season. But not yet this year,” said meteorologist Adam Roser with the weather service in San Diego. No rain is expected for Southern California for at least the next week and a half, he said. Northern California, which has seen more precipitation this fall but not much recently, was expecting dry, windy weather starting this weekend.

Top Democrats swing behind bipartisan COVID-19 relief bill

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-02/top-democrats-swing-behind-bipartisan-coronavirus-aid-bill

Democratic leaders swung behind a bipartisan COVID-19 relief effort Wednesday, cutting their demands for a $2-trillion-plus measure by more than half in hopes of breaking a months-long logjam and delivering much-sought aid as a coda to a tempestuous congressional session. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) made the announcement in a joint statement. It was aimed at budging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who so far has been unwilling to abandon a $550-million Senate GOP plan that has failed twice this fall. The Democrats embraced a $908-billion approach from moderate Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), among others. It would establish a $300-per-week jobless benefit, send $160 billion to help state and local governments, boost schools and universities, revive popular “paycheck protection” subsidies for businesses, and bail out transit systems and airlines. “In the spirit of compromise we believe the bipartisan framework introduced by Senators yesterday should be used as the basis for immediate bipartisan, bicameral negotiations,” Pelosi and Schumer said in their statement. They said they would try to build upon the approach, which has support in the House from a bipartisan “problem solvers” coalition. The new plan includes a liability shield for businesses and other organizations that have reopened their doors during the pandemic. It’s the first time Pelosi and Schumer have shown a willingness to consider the idea. McConnell had dismissed the bipartisan offer Tuesday, instead aiming to rally Republicans around the $550-billion GOP proposal. President-elect Joe Biden is calling upon lawmakers to pass a relief bill now, with more aid to come next year. It’s unclear whether the flurry of activity will lead to progress. As time runs out on Congress’ lame-duck session and the Trump presidency, many Republicans won’t even acknowledge that President Trump has lost the election, and good faith between the two parties is in short supply. The bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed a split-the-difference solution to the protracted impasse, hoping to speed overdue help to a hurting nation before Congress adjourns for the holidays. It was a sign that some lawmakers were reluctant to adjourn for the year without approving some pandemic aid. Centrists such as Manchin and Collins hope to exert greater influence in a closely divided Congress during the incoming Biden administration. Their proposal includes $228 billion to extend and upgrade “paycheck protection” subsidies for hard-hit businesses such as restaurants. It would revive a special jobless benefit, but at a reduced level of $300 per week rather than the $600 benefit enacted in March. State and local governments would receive $160 billion. There’s also $45 billion for transportation, including aid to transit systems and Amtrak; $82 billion to reopen schools and universities; and money for vaccines and healthcare providers, as well as for food stamps, rental assistance and the U.S. Postal Service. Politics President-elect Joe Biden’s Goldilocks Cabinet picks underscore his deftness at hugging the center in politics and policy, as he tries to avoid the bitter partisanship that has hobbled recent presidents. Nov. 24, 2020 The new effort follows a split-decision election that delivered the White House to Democrats and gave Republicans down-ballot success, gaining seats in the Democratic-controlled House and perhaps retaining their Senate majority. At less than $1 trillion, it is less costly than a proposal from McConnell this summer. He later abandoned that effort for a considerably less costly measure that failed to advance this fall. Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin struggled over a relief bill for weeks before the November election, discussing legislation of up to $2 trillion. Senate GOP conservatives opposed their efforts, and Pelosi refused to yield on key points. The bipartisan compromise is virtually free of detail so far but includes a McConnell priority: a temporary shield against COVID-19-related lawsuits against businesses and other organizations that have reopened during the pandemic. His warnings of a wave of destructive suits hasn’t been borne out, and the provision is sure to draw opposition from the trial lawyers’ lobby, which retains considerable influence with Democratic leaders.

Say goodbye to emotional-support animals in airplane cabins

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-02/us-tightens-definition-of-service-animals-allowed-on-planes

The U.S. government has decided that when it comes to air travel, only dogs can be service animals, and companions used for emotional support don’t count. The Transportation Department issued a final rule Wednesday that aims to settle years of tension between airlines and passengers who bring their pets on board for free by saying they need them for emotional support. For years, the department required airlines to allow animals with passengers who had a doctor’s note saying they needed the animal for emotional support. Airlines believed passengers abused the rule to bring a menagerie of animals on board including cats, turtles, pigs and, in one case, a peacock. The agency said Wednesday that it was rewriting the rules partly because passengers carrying unusual animals on board “eroded the public trust in legitimate service animals.” It also cited the increasing frequency of people “fraudulently representing their pets as service animals,” and a rise in misbehavior by emotional-support animals. The new rule will force passengers with emotional-support animals to check them into the cargo hold — and pay a pet fee — or leave them at home. The agency estimated airlines will gain up to $59.6 million a year in pet fees. Under the final rule, which takes effect in 30 days, a service animal is a dog trained to help a person with a physical or psychiatric disability. Advocates for veterans and others had pushed for inclusion of psychiatric service dogs. Airlines will be able to require owners to vouch for the dog’s health, behavior and training. Airlines can require people with a service dog to turn in paperwork up to 48 hours before a flight, but they can’t bar those travelers from checking in online like other passengers. Airlines can require service dogs to be leashed at all times, and they can bar dogs that show aggressive behavior. There have been incidents of emotional-support animals biting passengers. The Transportation Department stood by an earlier decision to prohibit airlines from banning entire dog breeds. That is a setback for Delta Air Lines, which banned “pit bull type dogs” in 2018, a move that was criticized by disability advocates. Delta, however, is giving no indication of backing down. In a statement, a Delta spokeswoman said the airline is reviewing the new rule but, “at this time, there are no changes to Delta’s current service and support animal policies.”

Chinese spacecraft collects moon rocks to take back to Earth

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-02/china-spacecraft-collects-moon-samples-to-take-back-to-earth

A Chinese spacecraft took samples of the moon’s surface Wednesday as part of a mission to bring lunar rocks back to Earth for the first time since the 1970s, adding to a string of successes for Beijing’s increasingly ambitious space program. The Chang’e 5 probe touched down Tuesday on the Sea of Storms on the moon’s near side after descending from an orbiter, the China National Space Administration said. It released images of the barren landing site showing the lander’s shadow. “Chang’e has collected moon samples,” the agency said in a statement. The probe, launched Nov. 24 from the tropical island of Hainan, is the latest venture by China’s space program, which sent the country’s first astronaut into orbit in 2003. Beijing also has a spacecraft en route to Mars and aims eventually to land a human on the moon. This week’s landing is “a historic step in China’s cooperation with the international community in the peaceful use of outer space,” said Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokeswoman. “China will continue to promote international cooperation and the exploration and use of outer space in the spirit of working for the benefit of all mankind,” Hua said. Science & Medicine Sometimes fresh interplanetary discoveries can be made right next door. Dec. 23, 2015 Plans call for the lander to spend two days drilling into the lunar surface and collecting 4.4 pounds of rocks and debris. The top stage of the probe will be launched back into lunar orbit to transfer the samples to a capsule to take back to Earth, where it is to land in China’s northern grasslands in mid-December. If it succeeds, it will be the first time scientists have obtained fresh samples of lunar rocks since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 probe in 1976. The samples are expected to be made available to scientists from other nations, although it is unclear how much access NASA will have, owing to U.S. government restrictions on cooperation with China’s military-linked program. From the rocks and debris, scientists hope to learn more about the moon, including its precise age, as well as increased knowledge about other bodies in the solar system. Collecting samples, including from asteroids, is an increasing focus of many space programs. World & Nation The passage of half a century has blurred many of the reasons that the United States was able to accomplish what seemed like science fiction: the July 20, 1969, landing of Apollo 11 on the moon. July 14, 2019 American and Russian space officials congratulated the Chinese program. “Congratulations to China on the successful landing of Chang’e 5. This is no easy task,” NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, wrote on Twitter. “When the samples collected on the Moon are returned to Earth, we hope everyone will benefit from being able to study this precious cargo that could advance the international science community.” U.S. astronauts brought back 842 pounds of lunar samples from 1969 to 1972, some of which is still being analyzed and experimented on. Breaking News Get breaking news, investigations, analysis and more signature journalism from the Los Angeles Times in your inbox. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. The Chang’e 5 flight is China’s third successful lunar landing. Its predecessor, Chang’e 4, was the first probe to land on the moon’s little-explored far side. Chinese space program officials have said they envision future crewed missions along with robotic ones, including possibly a permanent research base. No timeline or other details have been announced. The latest flight includes collaboration with the European Space Agency, which is helping to monitor the mission from Earth.

2 children die in San Bernardino drunk-driving crash that also killed their father

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-02/2-children-die-san-bernardino-drunk-driving-crash

Two of four children who were injured in a San Bernardino drunk-driving crash that killed their father have also died, police say. The children were 2 and 4 years old, Sgt. John Echevarria told the Riverside Press-Enterprise on Tuesday. Police did not indicate when the children died. Another child was in serious condition Tuesday and a fourth had moderate injuries, Echevarria said. The children and their 31-year-old father, all from Bakersfield, were in a Toyota Camry that was broadsided by a speeding Ford Mustang that ran a red light last Friday, authorities said. The Camry caught fire. The identities of the victims weren’t immediately released. The Mustang’s driver, Brandon Jaquez-Perez, 23, of Bloomington in San Bernardino, was arrested on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and driving under the influence of alcohol. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he had an attorney to speak on his behalf.

GOP Georgia election official urges Trump to rein in supporters amid threats of violence

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-01/georgia-elections-official-urges-trump-to-rein-in-supporters

A top Georgia election official on Tuesday lashed out angrily at the rhetoric surrounding the election and the threats of violence that have resulted, specifically calling on President Trump to rein in his supporters. Gabriel Sterling is a Republican who oversaw the implementation of the state’s new voting system. During a routine news conference at the state Capitol to provide an update on the recount of the presidential race requested by Trump, Sterling admonished the president and Georgia’s two U.S. senators, who are both locked in tight runoff races against Democrats and have called on GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign over claims that he mishandled the election. “Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions,” Sterling said, visibly angry. “This has to stop. We need you to step up, and if you’re going to take a position of leadership, show some.” People have been driving in caravans past Raffensperger’s home, have come onto his property and have sent sexualized threats to his wife’s cellphone, said Sterling. Raffensperger and Sterling both have police officers stationed outside their homes, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said it’s investigating possible threats against officials to determine their credibility. Sterling said his anger boiled over when he learned that a contractor with Dominion Voting Systems helping with the recount in suburban Gwinnett County received death threats after someone shot video of him transferring a report to a county computer and falsely said the young man was manipulating election data. “There’s a noose out there with his name on it. That’s not right,” Sterling said, adding that the contractor didn’t seek the spotlight by taking a high-profile position like Sterling or run for office like Raffensperger. “This kid took a job. He just took a job.” Trump last week called Raffensperger an “enemy of the people,” Sterling noted, adding, “That helped open the floodgates to this kind of crap.” Sterling urged the president to step up and tell his supporters not to commit acts of violence. “Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed,” Sterling said. Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in a statement Tuesday evening, “No one should engage in threats or violence, and if that has happened, we condemn that fully.” The campaigns for Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler both issued statements Tuesday evening condemning violence but also criticizing election officials, according to news outlets. “Like many officials, as someone who has been the subject of threats, of course Senator Loeffler condemns violence of any kind. How ridiculous to even suggest otherwise,” Loeffler campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson said. “We also condemn inaction and lack of accountability in our election system process — and won’t apologize for calling it out.”

Justice Dept. investigating potential bribery and lobbying scheme for presidential pardon

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-01/us-probing-potential-bribery-lobbying-scheme-for-pardon

The Justice Department is investigating whether there was a secret scheme to lobby White House officials for a pardon as well as a related plot to offer a hefty political contribution in exchange for clemency, according to a court document unsealed Tuesday. Most of the information in the 18-page court order is redacted, including the identity of the people whom prosecutors are investigating and whom the proposed presidential pardon might be intended for. But the document from August does reveal that people are suspected of having acted to secretly lobby White House officials to secure a pardon or sentence commutation and that, in a related scheme, a substantial political contribution was floated in exchange for a pardon. As part of the investigation, more than 50 laptops, iPads and other digital devices have been seized, according to the document. The existence of the investigation was revealed in a court order from U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, the chief judge of Washington’s federal court, in which she granted investigators access to certain email communications connected to the alleged schemes that she said were not protected by attorney-client privilege. Prosecutors will be able to use that material to confront any subject or target of the investigation, the judge wrote. The order was dated Aug. 28, and prosecutors sought to keep it private because they said it identifies people not charged by a grand jury. But on Tuesday, Howell unsealed that document while redacting from view any personally identifiable information. Politics Atty. Gen. William Barr said Tuesday that the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of substantive voter fraud. Dec. 1, 2020 Pardons are common at the end of a president’s tenure and are occasionally politically fraught affairs as some convicted felons look to leverage connections inside the White House to secure clemency. Last week, President Trump announced that he had pardoned his first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, even as a federal judge was weighing a Justice Department request to dismiss the case. Spokespeople for the Justice Department did not immediately return an email seeking comment Tuesday evening. The existence of the investigation was first reported by CNN.

First COVID-19 vaccines should go to healthcare workers and nursing homes, panel says

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-01/us-panel-1st-vaccines-to-health-care-workers-nursing-homes

Healthcare workers and nursing home residents should be at the front of the line when the first coronavirus vaccine shots become available, an influential government advisory panel said Tuesday. The panel voted 13-1 to recommend that those groups get priority in the first days of any coming vaccination program, when doses are expected to be very limited. The two groups account for about 24 million people out of a U.S. population of about 330 million. Later this month, the Food and Drug Administration will consider authorizing emergency use of two vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna. Current estimates project that no more than 20 million doses of each vaccine will be available by the end of 2020. And each product requires two doses. As a result, the shots will be rationed in the early stages. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced a stay-at-home order affecting most of California. Nov. 30, 2020 The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet again to decide who should be next in line. Among the possibilities: teachers, police, firefighters and workers in other essential fields such as food production and transportation; the elderly; and people with underlying medical conditions. Tuesday’s action merely designated who should get shots first if a safe and effective vaccine becomes available. The panel did not endorse any particular vaccine. Panel members are waiting to hear the FDA’s analysis and to see more safety and efficacy data before endorsing any particular product. Experts say the vaccine will probably not become widely available in the U.S. until the spring. Science & Medicine When people talk about COVID-19 vaccines, they can sound like they’re speaking a foreign language. Don’t worry! Here’s your guide to vaccine vocabulary. Dec. 3, 2020 The panel of independent scientific experts, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who almost always approves them. It normally has 15 voting members, but one seat is vacant. The recommendations are not binding, but for decades they have been widely heeded by doctors, and they have determined the scope and funding of U.S. vaccination programs. It will be up to state authorities whether to follow the guidance. It will also be left to them to make further, more detailed decisions if necessary — for example, whether to put emergency room doctors and nurses ahead of other healthcare workers if vaccine supplies are low. The outbreak in the U.S. has killed nearly 270,000 people and caused more than 13.5 million confirmed infections, with deaths, hospitalizations and cases rocketing in recent weeks. As the virtual meeting got underway, panel member Dr. Beth Bell of the University of Washington noted that on average, one person is dying of COVID-19 per minute in the U.S. right now, “so I guess we are acting none too soon.” World & Nation Federal regulators will consider requests in December by Pfizer and Moderna for emergency use authorization for their coronavirus vaccines. Dec. 1, 2020 About 3 million people are living in nursing homes, chronic care hospitals, and other U.S. long-term care facilities. Those patients and the staff members who care for them have accounted for 6% of the nation’s coronavirus cases and 39% of the COVID-19 deaths, CDC officials say. Despite the heavy toll, some board members at Tuesday’s meeting said they hesitated to include such patients in the first group getting shots. Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot, an infectious diseases researcher at Vanderbilt University who was the lone committee member to vote against the proposal, cited influenza research that found vaccinating the staff of such facilities has the greatest impact on preventing its spread there. Dr. Richard Zimmerman, a University of Pittsburgh flu vaccine researcher who watched the meeting online, echoed Talbot’s concerns. “I think it was premature” to include nursing home residents as a priority group, said Zimmerman, a former ACIP member. “Their vote seems to assume that these people will respond well to the vaccine. ... I don’t think we know that.” Politics California and other states are racing to finalize plans for who will get the first doses of COVID-19 vaccines and how they will be delivered. Nov. 19, 2020 Committee members were unanimous in voicing support for vaccinating healthcare workers — about 21 million people, according to CDC officials. That broad category includes medical staff who care for — or come in contact with — patients in hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and doctor’s offices. It also includes home healthcare workers and paramedics. Depending on how state officials apply the panel’s recommendations, it could also encompass janitorial staff, food service employees and medical records clerks. The government estimates people working in healthcare account for 12% of U.S. COVID-19 cases but only about 0.5% of deaths. Experts say it’s imperative to keep healthcare workers on their feet so they can administer the shots and tend to the ballooning number of infected Americans. For months, members of the immunization panel had said they wouldn’t take a vote until the FDA approved a vaccine, as is customary. But late last week, the group scheduled an emergency meeting. The panel’s chairman, Dr. Jose Romero, said the decision stemmed from a realization that the states are facing a Friday deadline to place initial orders for the Pfizer vaccine and determine where they should be delivered. The committee decided to meet now to give state and local officials guidance, he said. But some panel members and other experts had also grown concerned by comments from Trump administration officials that suggested differing vaccine priorities. California Distributing COVID-19 vaccine will be biggest health operation in L.A. history. Can the bureaucracy pull it off? Nov. 20, 2020 Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force said in a meeting with CDC officials last month that people 65 and older should go to the head of the line, according to a federal official who was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Then last week, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar stressed that ultimately governors will decide who in their states gets the shots. Vice President Mike Pence echoed that view. Asked whether Azar’s comment played a role in the scheduling of the meeting, Romero said; “We don’t live in a bubble. We know what he said. But that wasn’t the primary reason this is being done.” Jason Schwartz, a professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health, said it makes sense for the panel to take the unusual step of getting its recommendation out first. “Without that formal recommendation, it does create a void from which states could go off in all sorts of different directions,” said Schwartz, who is not on the panel. Science & Medicine There are still many unknowns when it comes to the pandemic, but the early signs of success for two experimental COVID-19 vaccines make a few things clear. Nov. 18, 2020 HHS officials have said they will distribute initial doses to states based on population, and it’s possible that some states won’t receive enough to cover all of their healthcare workers and nursing home residents. CDC officials said they are optimistic such shortages would last only a few weeks. Still, governors and local officials may have to decide which healthcare workers or regions get shots first, Schwartz said. “It’s up to states to figure out the more granular detail,” he said.

Mountain pine tree that feeds grizzlies is threatened, U.S. officials say

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-01/us-mountain-pine-tree-that-feeds-grizzlies-is-threatened

Climate change, voracious beetles and disease are imperiling the long-term survival of a high-elevation pine tree that’s a key source of food for some grizzly bears and found across the West, U.S. officials said Tuesday. A Fish and Wildlife Service proposal scheduled to be published Wednesday would protect the whitebark pine tree as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, according to documents posted by the Office of the Federal Register. The move marks a belated acknowledgment of the tree’s severe declines in recent decades and sets the stage for restoration work. But government officials said they do not plan to designate which forest habitats are critical to the tree’s survival, stopping short of what some environmentalists argue is needed. Whitebark pines can live up to 1,000 years and are found at elevations up to 12,000 feet — conditions too harsh for most trees to survive. Environmentalists had petitioned the government in 1991 and again in 2008 to protect the trees, which occur across 126,000 square miles in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and western Canada. A non-native fungus has been killing whitebark pines for a century. More recently, the trees have proved vulnerable to bark beetles that have killed millions of acres of forest, and climate change that scientists say is responsible for more severe wildfire seasons. The trees have been all but wiped out in some areas, including the eastern edge of Yellowstone National Park, where they are a source of food for threatened grizzly bears. More than half of whitebark pines in the U.S. are now dead, according to a 2018 study from the U.S. Forest Service. That has complicated government efforts to declare grizzlies in the Yellowstone area as a recovered species that no longer needs federal protection. Grizzlies raid caches of whitebark pine cones that are hidden by squirrels and devour the seeds within the cones to fatten up for winter. A 2009 court ruling that restored protections for Yellowstone bears cited in part the tree’s decline, although government studies later concluded the grizzlies could find other things to eat. After being sued for not taking steps to protect the pine trees, wildlife officials in 2011 acknowledged that whitebark pines needed protections but they took no immediate action, saying other species faced more immediate threats. An attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which submitted the 2008 petition for protections, lamented that it took so long but said the proposal was still worth celebrating. “This is the federal government admitting that climate change is killing off a widely distributed tree, and we know that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are many species threatened,” said Rebecca Riley, legal director for the environmental group’s nature program. The government’s proposal describes the threats to the pine tree as imminent and said it was one of many plants expected to be harmed as climate change moves faster than they can adapt. “Whitebark pine survives at high elevations already, so there is little remaining habitat in many areas for the species to migrate to higher elevations in response to warmer temperatures,” Fish and Wildlife Service officials wrote. The officials added that overall, whitebark pine stands have seen severe reductions in regeneration because of wildfires, a fungal disease called white pine blister rust, mountain pine beetles and climate change. Amid those growing threats, federal officials are working in conjunction with researchers and private groups on plans to gather cones from trees that are resistant to blister rust, grow their seeds in greenhouses and then plant them back on the landscape, said Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Amy Nicholas. A draft of that nationwide restoration is expected by the end of next year. “We do have options to revive this species,” Nicholas said.

Barr has appointed Durham as special counsel in Russia probe investigation

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-01/barr-appoints-special-counsel-in-russia-probe-investigation

Atty. Gen. William Barr has given extra protection to the prosecutor he appointed to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, giving him the authority of a special counsel to complete the work without being easily fired. Barr told the Associated Press on Tuesday that he had appointed U.S. Atty. John Durham as a special counsel in October under the same federal statute that governed special counsel Robert Mueller in the original Russia probe. He said Durham’s investigation had been narrowing to focus more on the conduct of FBI agents who worked on the Russia investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane. Under federal regulations, a special counsel can be fired only by the attorney general and for specific reasons such as misconduct, dereliction of duty or conflict of interest. An attorney general must document such reasons in writing. Politics Atty. Gen. William Barr said Tuesday that the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of substantive voter fraud. Dec. 1, 2020 The investigations grew out of allegations of cooperation between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russians to help him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. “I decided the best thing to do would be to appoint them under the same regulation that covered Bob Mueller, to provide Durham and his team some assurance that they’d be able to complete their work regardless of the outcome of the election,” Barr said Tuesday. Biden’s transition team didn’t immediately comment on the appointment. The current investigation, a criminal probe, began very broadly but had since “narrowed considerably,” Barr said, and now “really is focused on the activities of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation within the FBI.” Barr said he expected Durham would detail whether any additional prosecutions would be brought and make public a report of the investigation’s findings. In an Oct. 19 order obtained by the Associated Press, Barr says Durham is authorized “to investigate whether any federal official, employee or any person or entity violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence or law enforcement activities” directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, anyone associated with the campaigns or the Trump administration. A senior Justice Department official told the AP that although the order detailed that it was “including but not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III,” the Durham probe has not expanded. The official said that line specifically related to FBI personnel who worked on the Russia investigation before the May 2017 appointment of Mueller, a critical area of scrutiny for both Durham and for the Justice Department inspector general, which identified a series of errors and omissions in surveillance applications targeting a former Trump campaign associate. The focus on the FBI, rather than the CIA and the intelligence community, suggests that Durham may have moved past some of the more incendiary claims that Trump supporters had hoped would yield allegations of misconduct, or even crimes — namely, the question of how intelligence agencies reached their conclusion that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election.

Atty. Gen. William Barr says Justice Dept. has seen no evidence of fraud that would affect election result

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-12-01/barr-no-evidence-of-fraud-thatd-change-election-outcome

Disputing President Trump’s persistent, baseless claims, Atty. Gen. William Barr declared Tuesday that the Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election. Barr’s comments, in an interview with the Associated Press, contradict the concerted effort by the president and allies to subvert the results of last month’s voting and block President-elect Joe Biden from taking his place in the White House. Barr told the AP that U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they have received, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” The comments, which drew immediate criticism from Trump attorneys, were especially notable coming from Barr, who has been one of the president’s most ardent defenders. Before the election, Barr had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voting could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the pandemic as Americans feared going to the polls and instead chose to vote by mail. More to Trump’s liking, Barr revealed in the AP interview that in October he had appointed U.S. Atty. John Durham as a special counsel, giving the prosecutor the authority to continue to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation after Biden takes office and making it difficult to fire him. Biden hasn’t said what he might do with the investigation, and his transition team didn’t comment Tuesday. Trump has long railed against the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign was coordinating with Russia, but he and Republican allies had hoped the results would be delivered before the 2020 election and would help sway voters. So far, there has been only one criminal case, a guilty plea from a former FBI lawyer to a single false statement charge. Under federal regulations, a special counsel can be fired only by the attorney general and for specific reasons such as misconduct, dereliction of duty or conflict of interest. An attorney general must document such reasons in writing. Barr went to the White House on Tuesday for a previously scheduled meeting that lasted about three hours. Trump didn’t directly comment on Barr’s remarks on the election. But his personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and his political campaign issued a scathing statement claiming that, “with all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn’t been any semblance” of an investigation into the president’s complaints. Other administration officials who have come out forcefully against Trump’s allegations of voter fraud — noting a lack of evidence — have been fired. But it’s not clear whether Barr might suffer the same fate. He maintains a lofty position with Trump, and despite occasional differences the two are stalwart allies. Still, Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York quipped: “I guess he’s the next one to be fired.” Last month, Barr issued a directive to U.S. attorneys across the country allowing them to pursue any “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities before the presidential election was certified, despite no evidence at that time of substantive fraud. That memorandum gave prosecutors the ability to go around long-standing Justice Department policy that normally would prohibit such overt actions before the election was certified. Soon after it was issued, the department’s top elections crime official announced he would resign his position because of the memo. The Trump campaign team led by Giuliani has been alleging with no evidence a widespread conspiracy by Democrats to dump millions of illegal votes into the system. They have filed multiple lawsuits in battleground states alleging that partisan poll watchers didn’t have a clear enough view at polling sites in some locations and therefore something illegal must have happened. The claims have been repeatedly dismissed, including by Republican judges — some appointed by Trump — who have ruled that the suits lacked evidence. But local Republicans in some states have followed Trump in making unsupported claims, prompting grave concerns over potential damage to American democracy. Trump himself continues to rail against the election in tweets and in interviews, though his own administration has said the 2020 election was the most secure ever. He recently allowed his administration to begin the transition over to Biden, but he still refuses to acknowledge he lost. The issues his legal efforts have pointed to are typical in every election: problems with signatures, secrecy envelopes and postal marks on mail-in ballots, as well as the potential for a small number of ballots miscast or lost. But they have gone further. Attorney Sidney Powell has spun fictional tales of election systems flipping votes, German servers storing U.S. voting information and election software created in Venezuela “at the direction of Hugo Chavez” — the Venezuelan president who died in 2013. Powell has since been removed from the legal team after an interview she gave in which she threatened to “blow up” Georgia with a “biblical” court filing. Barr didn’t name Powell specifically but said: “There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that.” In the campaign statement, Giuliani claimed there was “ample evidence of illegal voting in at least six states, which they have not examined.” “We have many witnesses swearing under oath they saw crimes being committed in connection with voter fraud. As far as we know, not a single one has been interviewed by the DOJ. The Justice Department also hasn’t audited any voting machines or used their subpoena powers to determine the truth,” he said. However, Barr said earlier that people were confusing the use of the federal criminal justice system with allegations that should be made in civil lawsuits. He said a remedy for many complaints would be a top-down audit by state or local officials, not the U.S. Justice Department. “There’s a growing tendency to use the criminal justice system as sort of a default fix-all,” he said, but first there must be a basis to believe there is a crime to investigate. “Most claims of fraud are very particularized to a particular set of circumstances or actors or conduct. ... And those have been run down; they are being run down,” Barr said. “Some have been broad and potentially cover a few thousand votes. They have been followed up on.”

Trump science advisor Scott Atlas is leaving White House job

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-30/trump-science-adviser-scott-atlas-leaving-white-house-job

Dr. Scott Atlas, a science advisor to President Trump who was skeptical of measures to control the coronavirus outbreak, is leaving his White House post. A White House official confirmed that the Stanford University neuroradiologist, who had no formal experience in public health or infectious diseases, resigned at the end of his temporary government assignment. Atlas confirmed the news in a Monday evening tweet. Atlas joined the White House this summer, where he clashed with top government scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, as he resisted stronger efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 267,000 Americans. Atlas has broken with government experts and the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community to criticize efforts to encourage face covering to slow the spread of the virus. Just weeks ago on Twitter he responded to Michigan’s latest virus restrictions by encouraging people to “rise up” against the state’s policies. His views also prompted Stanford to issue a statement distancing itself from the faculty member, saying Atlas “has expressed views that are inconsistent with the university’s approach in response to the pandemic.” World & Nation The Times set out to document a day in the pain and loss of COVID-19. Nov. 30, 2020 “We support using masks, social distancing, and conducting surveillance and diagnostic testing,” the university said Nov. 16. “We also believe in the importance of strictly following the guidance of local and state health authorities.” Atlas defended his role in his resignation letter, saying, “I cannot think of a time where safeguarding science and the scientific debate is more urgent.” Atlas was hired as a “special government employee,” which limited his service to government to 130 days in a calendar year — a deadline he reached this week.

Hacker who sent bogus threats to LAX, school districts gets prison sentence

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-01/hacker-bogus-threats-lax-schools-sentenced

A hacker who issued dozens of phony bombing and shooting threats — including to LAX and Southern California schools — and who made a false hijacking report about a California-bound jetliner has been sentenced to nearly eight years in federal prison. Timothy Dalton Vaughn, 22, of Winston-Salem, N.C., was sentenced Monday by a federal judge for conspiracy, hacking and possession of hundreds of items of child pornography. Vaughn had pleaded guilty to federal charges last fall after his arrest in February 2019. Vaughn was a member of the “Apophis Squad,” which prosecutors described as a worldwide hacker collective that sent threatening phone calls and false email reports of violent school attacks. Vaughn and others sent emails to at least 86 school districts that threatened attacks, including “the imminent detonation of a bomb made with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, rocket-propelled grenade heads placed under school buses, and the placement of land mines on sports fields,” according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California. Among the school districts targeted were ones in Anaheim, El Segundo, Redlands, Tustin, Garden Grove, Mission Viejo, Santa Ana, Riverside, Chino and Lompoc. Vaughn also falsely reported in August 2018 that armed men had hijacked an airliner bound for San Francisco, prosecutors said. Breaking News Get breaking news, investigations, analysis and more signature journalism from the Los Angeles Times in your inbox. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. In that incident, he teamed up with a fellow Apophis Squad member in Britain, George Duke-Cohan, who called the San Francisco airport claiming to be the father of a passenger aboard a United Airlines flight en route from London, according to the indictment unsealed after Vaughn’s arrest by FBI agents. Duke-Cohan said that the plane had been hijacked by four men with weapons and explosives. The indictment also alleged that Vaughn hacked into the website of Hoonigan Industries, a Long Beach-based motorsports company, launching a denial-of-service attack in January 2018 that shut down the firm’s computer network for three days by flooding it with large amounts of data.

Wisconsin certifies Joe Biden as winner following recount

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-30/wisconsin-certifies-joe-biden-as-winner-following-recount

Joe Biden’s victory in battleground Wisconsin was certified Monday following a partial recount that added to his 20,600-vote margin over President Trump, who has promised to file a lawsuit seeking to undo the results. Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, signed a certificate that completed the process after the canvass report showing Biden as the winner following the recount was approved by the chairwoman of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission. Evers’ signature was required by law and is typically a procedural step that receives little attention. “Today I carried out my duty to certify the Nov. 3 election,” Evers said in a statement. “I want to thank our clerks, election administrators, and poll workers across our state for working tirelessly to ensure we had a safe, fair, and efficient election. Thank you for all your good work.” The action Monday starts a five-day deadline for Trump to file a lawsuit, which he promised would come no later than Tuesday. Trump is mounting a longshot attempt to overturn the results by disqualifying as many as 238,000 ballots. Trump’s attorneys have alleged without evidence that there was widespread fraud and illegal activity. Biden’s campaign has said the recount showed that he won Wisconsin decisively, and there was no fraud. Even if Trump had been successful in Wisconsin, the state’s 10 electoral college votes would not be enough to undo Biden’s overall victory as other states certify results. Earlier Monday, Arizona officials certified Biden’s narrow victory in that state. “There’s no basis at all for any assertion that there was widespread fraud that would have affected the results,” Wisconsin’s Democratic Atty. Gen. Josh Kaul said in a statement Monday. He noted that Trump’s recount targeted only the state’s two most populous counties, where the majority of Black people live. “I have every confidence that this disgraceful Jim Crow strategy for mass disenfranchisement of voters will fail,” Kaul said. “An election isn’t a game of gotcha.” State law gives the power to confirm the election results to the chair of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission. The position rotates between Republicans and Democrats and is currently held by Ann Jacobs, a Democrat. She signed the canvass statement certifying Biden as the winner over objections from Republicans who wanted to wait until legal challenges were exhausted. Politics Pressing unproved fraud claims, Trump acknowledges in first post-vote interview that legal effort has foundered. Nov. 29, 2020 Under state law, the elections staff next sent a certificate to Evers to sign and send to the U.S. administrator of general services — a procedural step, since the law says the governor “shall sign” it. Evers did so about an hour after the canvassed results were confirmed. Trump’s legal challenges have failed in other battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Two lawsuits from others seeking to disqualify ballots in Wisconsin were filed last week with the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which has not taken action. Trump paid $3 million for recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the two largest Democratic counties in Wisconsin, but the recount ended up increasing Biden’s lead by 74 votes. Biden won statewide by nearly 20,700 votes. Trump, during the recount, sought to have ballots discarded if election clerks filled in missing address information on the certification envelope in which the ballot is inserted. The state elections commission told clerks before the election that they could fill in missing information on the absentee ballot envelopes, a practice that has been in place for at least the past 11 elections and that no court has ever ruled illegal. Trump also challenged any absentee ballot in which voters declared themselves to be “indefinitely confined” under the law, a designation that increased from about 57,000 in 2016 to nearly 216,000 this year due to the pandemic. Such a declaration exempts the voter from having to show a photo identification to cast a ballot; Trump attorney Christ Troupis called this “an open invitation for fraud and abuse.” The conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court this spring ruled that it is up to individual voters to determine whether they are indefinitely confined, in line with guidance from the state elections commission. Trump also sought to discard any absentee ballot for which there was not a written application on file and all absentee ballots cast in person during the two weeks before election day. People who vote early in person fill out a certification envelope in which they place their ballot; that envelope serves as the written record. But the vast majority of absentee requests are made online, with a voter’s name entered into an electronic log and no paper record. Politics President-elect Joe Biden will have an all-female communications team at his White House, led by campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield. Nov. 29, 2020 If all the ballots in Milwaukee and Dane counties that Trump identified during the recount were disqualified, more than 238,000 votes would not be counted, according to an analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The conservative Wisconsin Voters Alliance sued last week seeking to block certification of the results and give the Republican-controlled Legislature the power to appoint presidential electors to cast the state’s 10 electoral college votes. The Wisconsin Democratic Party previously selected Biden’s 10 electors, as prescribed by law. The signing of the canvass statement Monday confirmed that Biden receives the state’s 10 votes from those electors. Another lawsuit filed over the weekend by Wisconsin resident Dean Mueller argues that ballots placed in drop boxes are illegal and must not be counted.

Arizona certifies Biden's narrow victory over Trump

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-11-30/arizona-certifies-biden-victory

Arizona officials certified the state’s election results Monday, formalizing Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow victory over Donald Trump even as the Republican president’s attorneys continued making baseless claims of fraud in the state’s vote count. Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs certified the election results alongside Gov. Doug Ducey and Atty. Gen. Mark Brnovich, both Republicans, and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Brutinel. Hobbs and Ducey both vouched for the integrity of the vote count. “We do elections well here in Arizona. The system is strong,” Ducey said. He did not directly address Trump’s claims of irregularities but said the state pulled off a successful election with a mix of in-person and mail voting despite the pandemic. Arizona voters should know that the election “was conducted with transparency, accuracy and fairness in accordance with Arizona’s laws and election procedures, despite numerous unfounded claims to the contrary,” Hobbs said. Politics Wisconsin has finished its recount of votes cast in this month’s presidential election, with only minuscule changes in results. Biden defeated Trump. Nov. 29, 2020 Biden is only the second Democrat in 70 years to win Arizona. In the final tally, he won by 10,457 votes, 0.3% of the nearly 3.4 million ballots cast. Eleven Democratic electors will meet Dec. 14 to formally cast Arizona’s electoral votes for Biden. Elections challenges brought by the Trump campaign or his backers in key battleground states have largely been unsuccessful as Trump continues to allege voter fraud while refusing to concede. There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In fact, election officials from both political parties have stated publicly that the election went well, and international observers confirmed there were no serious irregularities. Even as state officials certified the results, Trump’s lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, held a meeting at a downtown Phoenix hotel to lay out claims of irregularities in Arizona’s vote count. But they did not provide evidence of widespread fraud. “The officials certifying have made no effort to find out the truth, which to me, gives the state Legislature the perfect reason to take over the conduct of this election because it’s being conducted irresponsibly and unfairly,” Giuliani said. Nine Republican lawmakers attended the hearing, which was expected to last for several hours. They had requested permission to hold a formal legislative hearing at the Capitol but were denied by the House speaker and Senate president. Politics Pressing unproved fraud claims, Trump acknowledges in first post-vote interview that legal effort has foundered. Nov. 29, 2020 Last week, a judge in Phoenix rejected the Arizona Republican Party’s bid to postpone the certification of election results in Maricopa County and dismissed the party’s legal challenge that sought a new audit of a sampling of ballots. Lawyers for the state GOP were scheduled to be in court again Monday to argue for a fresh challenge of the verification process for mail ballots. The certification also paves the way for Democrat Mark Kelly to take his seat in the U.S. Senate, formalizing his victory in a special election to finish the last two years of the term of John McCain, who died in 2018. Kelly is scheduled to be sworn in on Wednesday in Washington.

Vanderbilt kicker Sarah Fuller is named SEC co-special teams player of the week

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2020-11-30/vanderbilt-womens-soccer-player-receives-sec-football-honor

The Southeastern Conference has named Vanderbilt kicker Sarah Fuller the league’s co-special teams player of the week after she became the first woman to play in a Power 5 conference football game. Fuller shared the award Monday with Florida punt returner Kadarius Toney after serving as Vanderbilt’s primary kicker in a loss to Missouri. The senior soccer player sent a squib kick 30 yards that was covered at the Missouri 35 to open the second half in her only chance to kick. Fuller became the third woman to play at the Football Bowl Subdivision level, joining Katie Hnida, who was the first scoring two extra points for New Mexico on Aug. 30, 2003, and April Goss, who had an extra point for Kent State in 2015. Fuller is continuing to practice with Vanderbilt, which visits No. 11 Georgia on Saturday. Fuller helped Vanderbilt win the Southeastern Conference women’s soccer tournament title on Nov. 22.

NATO mulls Afghan dilemma as U.S. draws down, attacks mount

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-30/nato-mulls-afghan-dilemma-as-us-draws-down-attacks-mount

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that the military alliance is grappling with a dilemma over its future in Afghanistan, as the United States starts pulling troops out while attacks by the Taliban and extremist groups mount. More than 17 years after taking the lead on international security efforts in Afghanistan, NATO now has around 11,000 troops from dozens of nations there helping to train and advise the national security forces. Most of the personnel are from Europe and other NATO partner countries. But the alliance relies heavily on U.S. armed forces for air support, transport and logistics. European allies would struggle even to leave the country without U.S. help, and President Trump’s decision to pull almost half the U.S. troops out by mid-January leaves NATO in a bind. “We face a difficult dilemma. Whether to leave, and risk that Afghanistan becomes once again a safe haven for international terrorists. Or stay, and risk a longer mission, with renewed violence,” Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a videoconference among NATO foreign ministers. Under a peace deal between the United States and the Taliban — without the involvement of other NATO allies or the Afghan government — all foreign troops should leave Afghanistan by May 1 if security conditions on the ground permit. “Whatever path we choose, it is important that we do so together, in a coordinated and deliberate way,” Stoltenberg said, on the eve of a videoconference among NATO foreign ministers where the organization’s most ambitious operation ever will be high on the agenda. Trump’s unilateral decision to leave only 2,500 U.S. troops with the mission had allied military planners scrambling, as they tried to work out whether NATO could continue to operate in Kabul and other major cities. NATO diplomats say that for now they have enough “enablers” to get the job done. Afghan officials also fear that a rapid reduction in American troops could strengthen the Taliban’s negotiating position. NATO defense ministers are likely to make a final decision about the future of the Resolute Support Mission in February, after President-elect Joe Biden takes office. European diplomats expect the tone to change under Biden, but probably not the U.S. intention to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. The uncertainty comes amid a sharp rise in violence this year and a surge of attacks by the Taliban against the beleaguered Afghan security forces since the start of peace talks in September. Islamic State militants have also struck this month, notably in a horrific attack on Kabul University that killed 22 people, most of them students. “We have seen over the last months and weeks several attacks,” Stoltenberg said. “Some are conducted by Taliban, some attacks ISIS claimed responsibility for. But what we know is that the Taliban is responsible for attacks and the level of violence is far too high.” Even U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison said: “We do not think the Taliban is keeping its word under the agreement. The violence is too high, and the Afghan people and the Afghan soldiers have paid a heavy price.” But despite the surge in violence, and deep uncertainty caused by the U.S. drawdown, the peace agreement appears to be an opportunity too good for NATO to miss. “We now see an historic opportunity for peace. It is fragile, but it must be seized,” Stoltenberg said. “We see an unpredictable and difficult military and political situation. But at least there are now talks.”

On London street, virus forces small shops to adapt or close

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-30/on-london-street-virus-forces-small-shops-to-adapt-or-close

In late October, Matthew Jones was enjoying a rare “bit of normality” at his London barbershop in a year that has been short on that. He was cutting hair and laughing with colleagues — when the news landed that the business would have to close for the second time. Jones, 43, endured 15 weeks without any income after the three Sharpes barber shops he co-owns were forced to shut in the spring as the government imposed restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The shops, including a tiny one in east London’s trendy Hackney neighborhood, had been open for four months when Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a new lockdown. “It was a body blow for everyone that works here,” he said. “You’re just building up your business again, trying to get back to a normal lifestyle. And then all of a sudden it’s all taken away.” As in much of Europe, the United Kingdom saw a sharp resurgence of COVID-19 infections this autumn, and officials imposed a second round of severe restrictions. The suffering has been especially acute in Britain, where more than 57,000 people have died in Europe’s deadliest outbreak and the economy has plunged into the worst recession on record. World & Nation The Times set out to document a day in the pain and loss of COVID-19. Nov. 30, 2020 While small businesses all over the world are struggling as the virus forces many to close outright while also remaking consumer habits, many in the U.K. are facing the double whammy of the pandemic and the economic uncertainty caused by Britain’s exit from the European Union. Many British businesses managed to survive the spring lockdown with generous aid from the government, including grants like the 10,000-pound ($13,300) one Jones received and a program that pays a portion of wages to workers whose employers are struggling. The measures have helped keep the unemployment rate relatively low at 4.8% — though it has been rising and is forecast to hit 7.5% next spring. The latest round of restrictions could pack a bigger punch, coming smack in the crucial weeks ahead of Christmas. Even before the second lockdown was announced, a survey conducted by Britain’s Office for National Statistics showed that 1 in 7 U.K. companies reported having “little or no confidence” they would survive the next three months. Jones estimates that the pandemic wiped out 60% of his income this year. With his shops closed, the single dad, who has a 10-year-old daughter, is doing odd jobs on building sites — and praying that business will return enough to ease the pain once restrictions lift Wednesday. The five other barbers who work in his shops are self-employed and trying to scrape by as well. “It could be really tough if it carries on,” Jones said, as he put up Christmas lights in his empty shop on Hackney’s Broadway Market. Hackney has seen steady gentrification in the last two decades. Located in London’s historically gritty East End, the borough was once known as the home of a stretch dubbed “Murder Mile,” but Hackney is now filled with trendy bars and expensive apartments. Broadway Market itself is lined with some 60 small shops, cafes and restaurants, and before COVID-19 hit, the street would throng with locals and tourists coming for the hugely popular weekend market. These days, some shops are doing better than others, but everyone is scrambling to adapt. Jane Howe, who has run Broadway Bookshop since 2005, said the weekends would often get so busy that her shop would take in thousands of pounds in sales a day on the back of 7.99-pound books. For a shop that relies heavily on foot traffic, the cycles of coronavirus restrictions have been hard. In June, Howe launched a website for the first time. Even once her doors reopened, the tiny space meant she couldn’t welcome back her usual crowds. Sales from the website don’t come close to making up for the in-person ones she’s lost — especially during the crucial Christmas period, when her shop typically rakes in a third of its annual sales. “We’re missing out on the impulse buys, the ‘sweetie-by-the-till factor,’” she said. With the shop pulling in just over half what it used to, Howe has stopped paying herself and, when one of her two employees left, she was not able to replace her. Like Jones, she’s managed to keep paying the rent thanks to a government grant. She has also taken out a 50,000-pound state loan. “What we are doing, which is our best, I think is working for the moment,” she said. Science & Medicine There are still many unknowns when it comes to the pandemic, but the early signs of success for two experimental COVID-19 vaccines make a few things clear. Nov. 18, 2020 Others haven’t fared as well. A much-loved bakery next to Sharpes that was part of 66-year-old family-run chain closed for good, Jones said. Percy Ingle blamed the closure of its 48 bakeries on many factors that predated the pandemic, including rising rents and wages and the likelihood that the low-margin business wouldn’t provide a good return on needed capital investments. Like many businesses, even those that were allowed to remain open, it shut for several weeks in the spring before reopening with safety measures. The bakery closure stands in contrast to a trend seen on much of the street, whose butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers and delis have done relatively well thanks to a surge in interest from fairly affluent locals who are now working from home and doing more shopping in the neighborhood. Popular coffee shop and roastery Climpsons struggled to adapt at first — the cafe was shut, the wholesale business almost completely wiped out, and 34 of the company’s 42 workers went on the government furlough scheme in the first weeks of the pandemic, co-owner Danny Davies said. But now on weekdays, Climpsons often serves more takeout coffees than before the pandemic. That makes up for losses on the wholesale side, which supplied restaurants and offices. “There’s the suburban community high street success story I think, which is a lot of great local businesses are thriving — much higher sales than before even, if they sell things that people can grab and go home with,” Davies said. Down the street, Grigorios Vaitsas says business at his deli, Isle of Olive, has not been too bad, even though he closed his small indoor cafe and Christmas shopping events have been canceled. But Vaitsas and his partner, Paulina, who import their products from Greece, have been losing sleep over another threat: Brexit. The couple are worried about the tariffs and bureaucracy if Britain leaves the economic embrace of the EU at the end of the year with no deal in place. That combined with the pandemic makes a “perfect storm,” Vaitsas said. “We are holding our breath,” he said. Vaitsas laughed when asked where he sees himself in six months. He says he’s “operating on a week-by-week basis.” Other business owners agree that they don’t have the capacity to think too far ahead. “Most businesspeople sort of wrote this year off…. Let’s just keep our heads down, pay our bills, pay the rent, and try not to worry,” Jones said. “And next year is another year, and we can start again.”

Doctor says President-elect Joe Biden fractured foot while playing with his dog

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-29/doctor-says-biden-fractured-foot-while-playing-with-his-dog

President-elect Joe Biden suffered hairline fractures in his foot while playing with one of his dogs, but doctors found “no obvious fracture” while examining him Sunday, according to his doctor. Biden suffered the injury on Saturday and visited an orthopedist at Delaware Orthopaedic Specialists in Newark, Del., for an examination Sunday afternoon, his office said. A subsequent CT scan “confirmed hairline (small) fractures of President-elect Biden’s lateral and intermediate cuneiform bones, which are in the mid-foot,” according to a statement from his doctor, Kevin O’Connor. “It is anticipated that he will likely require a walking boot for several weeks,” O’Connor added. Politics President-elect Joe Biden will have an all-female communications team at his White House, led by campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield. Nov. 29, 2020 Reporters covering the president-elect were not afforded the opportunity to see Biden enter the doctor’s office, despite multiple requests. Leaving the doctor’s office to head to an imaging center for his CT scan, Biden was visibly limping, though he walked without a crutch or other aid. Biden was under examination for more than two hours after arriving at the office Sunday afternoon. Biden suffered the injury playing with Major, one of the Bidens’ two dogs. They adopted Major in 2018, and acquired their first dog, Champ, after the 2008 election. The Bidens have said they’ll be taking their dogs to the White House and also plan to get a cat. At 78, Biden will be the oldest president when he’s inaugurated in January, but he frequently dismissed questions about his age on the campaign trail. He released a doctor’s report in December that disclosed he takes a statin to keep his cholesterol at healthy levels, but his doctor described him as “healthy, vigorous” and “fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.”

Biden chooses an all-female senior White House press team

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-29/biden-chooses-an-all-female-senior-white-house-press-team

President-elect Joe Biden will have an all-female senior communications team at his White House, led by campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield. Bedingfield will serve as Biden’s White House communications director, and Jen Psaki, a longtime Democratic spokeswoman, will be his press secretary. Psaki has already been working with Biden’s team, serving as one of the main spokespeople for the transition. Both Bedingfield and Psaki are veterans of the Obama administration. Politics Wisconsin has finished its recount of votes cast in this month’s presidential election, with only minuscule changes in results. Biden defeated Trump. Nov. 29, 2020 “Communicating directly and truthfully to the American people is one of the most important duties of a President, and this team will be entrusted with the tremendous responsibility of connecting the American people to the White House,” Biden said in a statement. “These qualified, experienced communicators bring diverse perspectives to their work and a shared commitment to building this country back better,” he added. Karine Jean Pierre, who was Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ chief of staff, will serve as a principal deputy press secretary for the president-elect. Pili Tobar, who was communications director for coalitions on Biden’s campaign, will be his deputy White House communications director.

Completed Wisconsin recount confirms Biden's win over Trump

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-29/completed-wisconsin-recount-confirms-bidens-win-over-trump

Wisconsin finished its recount of votes cast in this month’s presidential election on Sunday, with only minuscule changes in the results that saw Democrat Joe Biden defeat Republican Donald Trump in the battleground state. Dane County, which includes the state capital of Madison, reported only small changes in its vote totals, mirroring the earlier results of the recount conducted in Milwaukee County. Trump gained 45 votes in Dane County, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Biden won the state by nearly 20,600 votes and his margin in Milwaukee and Dane counties was about 2-to-1. “As we have said, the recount only served to reaffirm Joe Biden’s victory in Wisconsin,” Danielle Melfi, who led Biden’s campaign in Wisconsin, said in a statement to the Associated Press. Trump’s next move in Wisconsin will likely be in court. Trump campaign officials didn’t immediately respond to AP requests for comment. In Milwaukee County, Biden’s lead increased by 132 votes after county election officials recounted the more than 450,000 votes that were cast there. World & Nation Pennsylvania’s highest court has thrown out a lower court’s order preventing the state from certifying dozens of contests on its Nov. 3 election ballot Nov. 28, 2020 Trump paid to have a recount in both counties and his attorneys appear ready for a legal challenge seeking to toss tens of thousands of ballots. The president’s campaign will need to act quickly. The deadline to certify the vote is Tuesday. Certification is done by the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Election Commission, which is bipartisan. The Wisconsin Voters Alliance, a conservative group, has already filed a lawsuit against state election officials seeking to block certification of the results. It makes many of the claims Trump is expected to make. Another suit filed over the weekend by Wisconsin resident Dean Mueller argues that ballots placed in drop boxes are illegal and must not be counted. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ attorneys have asked the state Supreme Court to dismiss the suit. Evers, a Democrat, said the complaint was a “mishmash of legal distortions” that used factual misrepresentations in an attempt to take voting rights away from millions of Wisconsin residents. Trump’s attorneys complained about absentee ballots from voters who identified themselves as “indefinitely confined,” allowing them to cast an absentee ballot without showing a photo ID; ballots that have a certification envelope with two different ink colors, indicating a poll worker may have helped complete it; and absentee ballots that don’t have a separate written record for its request, such as in-person absentee ballots. Election officials in the two counties have counted those ballots during the recount, but marked them as exhibits at the request of the Trump campaign. Trump’s campaign has already failed elsewhere in court without proof of widespread fraud, which experts widely agree doesn’t exist. Trump legal challenges have failed in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Politics President Trump spent his Thanksgiving renewing baseless claims that “massive fraud” and crooked officials in battleground states caused his election defeat. Nov. 26, 2020

Over 300 detained in Belarus during anti-government protests

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-29/300-detained-belarus-anti-government-protests

A human rights group in Belarus says more than 300 people have been detained during protests against the country’s authoritarian president, who won his sixth term in office in a vote widely seen as rigged. The protests took place Sunday in Minsk, the capital, and other cities and attracted thousands of people. In Minsk, large crowds gathered in different parts of the city despite the snowy weather for what has been dubbed the Neighbors’ March, blocking roads in some areas. “Neighbor for neighbor against dictatorship,” one protest banner read. “Go away, rat!” the crowds chanted, referring to President Alexander Lukashenko, who has run the country for 26 years, relentlessly cracking down on dissent. Nearly 250 demonstrators were detained in Minsk alone, police said. Company Town Pearlstine, who just celebrated his 78th birthday, made the announcement Monday during a meeting with top editors and then in a note to staff members. Oct. 5, 2020 Mass protests have gripped Belarus, a former Soviet republic in Eastern Europe, since official results from the Aug. 9 presidential election gave Lukashenko a landslide victory over his widely popular opponent, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. She and her supporters refused to recognize the result, saying the vote was riddled with fraud. Authorities have cracked down hard on the largely peaceful demonstrations, the biggest of which attracted as many as 200,000 people. Police used stun grenades, tear gas and truncheons to disperse the rallies. On Sunday, police once again deployed tear gas and stun grenades to break up some of the crowds in Minsk, and some were chased into residential courtyards and beaten with truncheons, the Viasna human rights center said. More than 300 people have been detained across the country, according to the group. Ahead of the rally, water cannons, armored vehicles and police vans were seen in the center of Minsk. Several subway stations were closed, and internet access was restricted. On Saturday, Tsikhanouskaya — who left the country soon after the election under pressure from authorities, and is currently in exile in Lithuania — extended her support to the protesters. “I will support everyone who takes part in the Neighbors’ March this Sunday,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a video statement. “We have come a long, hard way together already. ... We’re a proud, brave, peaceful people that have learned the price of freedom and will never agree to live without it.”

New York City to reopen schools even as virus spread intensifies

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-29/nyc-to-reopen-schools-even-as-virus-spread-intensifies

New York City will reopen its school system to in-person learning, and increase the number of days a week many children attend class, even as the coronavirus pandemic intensifies in the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday. The announcement marked a major policy reversal for the nation’s largest school system just 10 days after De Blasio, a Democrat, announced that schools were shutting down because of a rising number of coronavirus cases in the city. Some elementary schools and pre-kindergarten programs will resume classes Dec. 7, a week from Monday, the mayor said. Others will take longer to reopen their doors. The plan for reopening middle and high schools is still being developed, De Blasio said. “We feel confident that we can keep schools safe,” he said. About 190,000 students will be eligible to return to classrooms in the first round of reopening, just a fraction of the more than 1 million total pupils in the system. The great majority of parents have opted to have their kids learn remotely by computer. De Blasio said many of those returning in person would be able to attend five days of class a week, up from one to three days previously. Elementary school students attending in person will be required to undergo frequent testing for the virus. Previously, the city had set a target of testing 20% of teachers and students in each school building once a month. Now, the testing will be weekly. World & Nation As coronavirus cases are surging around the country, some colleges and universities are rethinking some of their plans for next semester. Nov. 28, 2020 The mayor said the city was doing away with its previous trigger for closing schools, which was when 3% or more of the virus tests conducted in the city over a seven-day period came back positive. New York City exceeded that threshold early in November, and things have slightly worsened since then. More than 9,300 New York City residents have tested positive for the virus over the last seven days.

34 killed in separate suicide bombings in Afghanistan, officials say

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-29/afghan-officials-say-34-killed-in-separate-suicide-bombings

At least 34 people were killed on Sunday in two separate suicide bombings in Afghanistan that targeted a military base and a provincial chief, officials said. There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks, which took place as Afghan government representatives and the Taliban hold face-to-face talks in Qatar for the first time to end the country’s decades-long war. In the eastern province of Ghazni, 31 soldiers were killed and 24 others wounded when the attacker drove a military Humvee full of explosives onto an army commando base before detonating the car bomb, according to an official in Afghanistan’s National Security Council, who requested anonymity because he was not permitted to speak directly to the media. The provincial health department chief, Zahir Shah Nikmal, also confirmed the casualty figures from the attack. Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry released a statement claiming 10 soldiers were killed and nine wounded. The ministry also offered a different account of what happened than the official at the National Security Council, saying the vehicle exploded near the army base after security forces opened fire on the car. It was not immediately clear why there was a discrepancy. Politics President Trump’s plan to abandon Afghanistan — again — risks turning a disaster into a catastrophe. Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said a suicide bombing took place, though he did not provide further details. The soldiers stationed at the base were responsible for conducting night raids, providing support to the army and police forces under siege, and taking part in large-scale operations against the Taliban and the militant group Islamic State in eastern and southern Afghanistan. The base is in a desert region, about three miles outside the city of Ghazni. Parts of the base and a nearby police building were partially destroyed by the powerful explosion. Windows were also blown out in nearby buildings elsewhere in the city. In southern Afghanistan, another suicide car bomber targeted the convoy of a provincial council chief in Zabol, killing at least three people and wounding 21 others, including children, according to provincial spokesman Gul Islam Sial. The provincial council chief, Attajan Haqbayat, survived the attack on Sunday with minor injuries, though one of his bodyguards was among those killed, said provincial police spokesman Hikmatullah Kochai. There has been a sharp rise in violence this year and a surge of attacks by the Taliban against Afghanistan’s beleaguered security forces since the start of peace talks in September. There have also been deadly attacks this month claimed by Islamic State militants in Afghanistan, including a horrific attack on Kabul University that killed 22 people, most of them students. The U.S., meanwhile, plans to withdraw an estimated 2,500 troops before the middle of January, leaving about 2,000 soldiers in Afghanistan as part of America’s longest war. Afghan officials, however, have expressed concerns that a rapid reduction in American troops could strengthen the negotiating hand of the Taliban. The United States has been pressing in recent weeks for a reduction in violence, while the Afghan government has been demanding a cease-fire. The Taliban has refused, saying a cease-fire will be part of negotiations, though the group has held to its promise to not attack U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops.

Pope, with new cardinals, warns church against mediocrity

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-29/pope-with-new-cardinals-warns-church-against-mediocrity

Pope Francis, joined by the church’s newest cardinals in a Mass on Sunday, warned against mediocrity as well as seeking out “godfathers” to promote one’s own career. Eleven of the 13 new cardinals sat near the central altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, where Francis on Saturday had bestowed upon them the red hats symbolizing they are now so-called princes of the church. Two of the new cardinals couldn’t make it to Rome because of pandemic travel complications. The freshly minted cardinals who did come to the Vatican wore protective masks and purple vestments, as the Roman Catholic Church began the solemn liturgical season of Advent in the run-up to Christmas. In his homily, Francis decried what he called “a dangerous kind of sleep: It is the slumber of mediocrity.” He added that Jesus “above all else detests lukewarm-ness.” Being chosen to head Vatican departments or eventually becoming pope themselves could be in any of these new cardinals’ future. Cardinals often advise popes and pick the next pontiff by conferring among themselves and then meeting in secret conclave to select one of their own to lead the Roman Catholic Church and its roughly 1.3 billion rank-and-file faithful. Politics Washington’s Wilton Gregory, now the only Black cardinal in the U.S., has grown increasingly outspoken over race matters. Francis has often warned against clericalism during his papacy, and he picked up on that theme in Sunday’s homily. “If we are awaited in heaven, why should we be caught up with earthly concerns? Why should we be anxious about money, fame, success, all of which will fade away?” the pope said. Deviating from his prepared text, he added: “Why look for godfathers for promoting one’s career?” In one of the most shocking illustrations of clericalism’s dangers, earlier this month, an internal Vatican report concluded that bishops, cardinals and even popes across decades dismissed or downplayed reports of sexual misconduct by a U.S. churchman, Theodore McCarrick. McCarrick had risen steadily through the ranks of hierarchy, eventually holding the prestigious post of archbishop of Washington, D.C. McCarrick was stripped of his cardinal’s rank and defrocked in 2019 after an investigation substantiated allegations of sexual abuse against him. While the in-house fact-finding noted the roles of Francis and Benedict XVI, his predecessor in the papacy, in not stopping McCarrick’s abuse of his position, much of the fault was laid on John Paul II, the long-reigning pontiff who was quickly made a saint after his death in 2005. John Paul appointed McCarrick to the Washington post and made him cardinal despite having commissioned an inquiry that confirmed the U.S. prelate shared his bed with seminarians. Among those raised to cardinal’s rank on Saturday by Francis was the current archbishop of Washington, Wilton Gregory, the first African American cardinal. Francis in his homily recommended charity as the way for the Roman Catholic Church to stay on mission. “Some people seem to think that being compassionate, helping and serving others is for losers,” Francis said, after decrying indifference. “When the church worships God and serves our neighbor, it does not live in the night. However weak and weary, she journeys towards the Lord.” Francis also prayed that God “rouse us from the slumber of mediocrity; awaken us from the darkness of indifference.”

David Prowse, actor who played Darth Vader in original 'Star Wars' trilogy, dies at 85

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-29/dave-prowse-actor-who-played-darth-vader-dies-at-85

David Prowse, the British weightlifter-turned-actor who played Darth Vader in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, has died. He was 85. Prowse died Saturday after a short illness, his agent Thomas Bowington said Sunday. Born in Bristol, southwest England, in 1935, Prowse represented England in weightlifting at the Commonwealth Games in the 1950s before breaking into movies with roles that emphasized his commanding size, including Frankenstein’s monster in a pair of horror films. Director George Lucas saw Prowse in a small part in “A Clockwork Orange” and asked the 6-foot-6 actor to audition for the villainous Vader or the Wookiee Chewbacca in “Star Wars.” Prowse later told the BBC he chose Darth Vader because “you always remember the bad guys.” Physically, Prowse was perfect for the part. His lilting English West Country accent was considered less ideal, and his lines were dubbed by actor James Earl Jones. Prowse was also known to a generation of British children as the Green Cross Code Man, a superhero in a series of road safety advertisements “Ant-Man” director Edgar Wright paid tribute to Prowse on Twitter. “As a kid Dave Prowse couldn’t be more famous to me; stalking along corridors as evil incarnate in the part of Darth Vader & stopping a whole generation of kiddies from being mown down in street as the Green Cross Code man,” he wrote. “Rest in Peace, Bristol’s finest.”

Newsom nixes parole for Manson follower Leslie Van Houten

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-28/governor-nixes-parole-for-manson-follower-leslie-van-houten

California Gov. Gavin Newson has reversed parole for Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten, marking the fourth time a governor has blocked her release. A California panel recommended parole in July for Van Houten, who has spent nearly five decades in prison. Newsom reversed her release once previously and his predecessor, Jerry Brown, blocked it twice. Van Houten’s attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, said they will appeal Newsom’s decision. “This reversal will demonstrate to the courts that there is no way Newsom will let her out,” Pfeiffer said. “So they have to enforce the law or it will never be enforced.” Van Houten is serving a life sentence for helping Manson and others kill Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in August 1969. Van Houten was 19 when she and other cult members fatally stabbed the LaBiancas and smeared the couple’s blood on the walls. California Read our full coverage of the Manson murders. The day before, other Manson followers, not including Van Houten, killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others. Newsom said in his decision that “evidence shows that she currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison.” Pfeiffer had unsuccessfully requested her release in May due to the coronavirus pandemic. In 2017, at her parole hearing, Van Houten talked about her childhood, including being devastated by her parents’ divorce when she was 14, using drugs, and running away with a boyfriend at the age of 17. She met Manson while traveling along the coast. Manson was living on the edge of Los Angeles with the “family” he recruited to survive a race war that he said he would spark with random, horrifying murders. Manson died in 2017 of natural causes at a California hospital while serving a life sentence.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis tests positive for the coronavirus

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-28/colorado-governor-tests-positive-for-coronavirus

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has tested positive for the coronavirus. Polis and his partner, Marlon Reis, both have COVID-19 and are asymptomatic, the governor said in a statement Saturday night. The governor had started quarantining Wednesday after he said he was exposed to the virus. Polis had tweeted late Wednesday that he tested negative the night after learning of his exposure but would be retested. The state has been hit with a substantial surge in coronavirus cases. One in 41 residents are believed to be contagious. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, no one is immune from this virus,” Polis said in his statement. “Now is the time to be more cautious than ever before. There is more of the virus circulating across the country, including in Colorado, now than there even was in the spring.” World & Nation As coronavirus cases are surging around the country, some colleges and universities are rethinking some of their plans for next semester. He said he will continue to serve the state while isolating himself. He urged residents to wear masks and keep six feet apart in public. For most people, the novel coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some — especially older adults and people with existing health problems — it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

With no action by Washington, states race to offer virus aid

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-28/with-no-action-by-washington-states-race-to-offer-virus-aid

Faulting inaction in Washington, governors and state lawmakers are racing to get pandemic relief to small business owners, the unemployed, renters and others whose livelihoods have been upended by the widening coronavirus outbreak. In some cases, elected officials are spending the last of a federal relief package passed in the spring as an end-of-year deadline approaches and the fall COVID-19 surge threatens their economies anew. Democrats have been the most vocal in criticizing President Trump and the GOP-controlled Senate for failing to act, but many Republican lawmakers are also sounding the alarm. Underscoring the need for urgency, 205,557 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the United States on Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, the first time the daily figure topped the 200,000 mark. The previous daily high was 196,000 on Nov. 20. The total number of cases reported in the U.S. since the pandemic began has topped 13 million. The Democratic governors of Colorado and New Mexico convened special legislative sessions in the closing days of November to address the virus-related emergency. Earlier this week, the New Mexico Legislature passed a bipartisan relief bill that will deliver a one-time $1,200 check to all unemployed workers and give up to $50,000 to certain businesses. Business The lucky among California’s small businesses have cobbled together loans and grants to get through the pandemic so far. But that money has dried up, and “you can only take on so much debt.” Nov. 28, 2020 Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said the state took action to help residents “who have real issues about keeping food on their table, a roof over their head.” “While the United States of America is on fire, the Trump administration has left states to fight this virus on their own,” she said, noting that state efforts alone simply are not enough. “It is clear no help is coming — not from this president, not from this administration. As we have done every day this year, New Mexico will step up.” In Colorado, a special session scheduled for Monday will consider roughly $300 million in relief to businesses, restaurants and bars, child-care providers, landlords, tenants, public schools and others. “Even as cases have exploded across the country, Congress and the president have not yet passed much-needed relief for people,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in announcing the session. “Here in Colorado, we want to do the best with what we have to take care of our own.” In New Jersey and Washington state, Republicans, who are a minority in both legislatures, were the ones pushing for special sessions. They want to direct more money to struggling small business owners. In Wisconsin, where Republicans control both houses of the Legislature, lawmakers are considering whether to return in December to address effects of the latest coronavirus wave after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers put forward a $500-million COVID-19 relief bill earlier this week. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, plans to convene lawmakers in December to contend with the virus, partially at Republicans’ urging. “Senate Republicans are committed to recovering our economy that has been harmed by broad and prolonged shutdowns,” Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka said in a statement. “We will work with anyone to find solutions.” State government leaders want Trump and Congress to extend the Dec. 30 deadline for spending virus relief money already allocated under the CARES Act, which was approved in March, and to provide more federal funding to deal with the consequences of the latest surge. “It’s just heartbreaking what they’re allowing to happen with no federal government intervention,” said Washington state House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, a Democrat. In making his decision to call the Minnesota Legislature into special session, Walz cited “a sense of urgency” around doing something on the state level due to the lack of a federal response. The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits reported that more than half of the state’s charitable organizations received forgivable loans through the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program this year, while another $12 million from the relief package is going to organizations that provide food to the needy. But all that will be spent — or forfeited — by the end of December without congressional action. “I would reiterate to our federal partners — to the outgoing administration and to the incoming Biden administration — please work together, please find a compromise in there, please. If you have to, move a package now with the idea that you will come back and move one later,” Walz said. “COVID is not going to end at the end of the month. We are in an unrelenting spike.” In Ohio, which has a Republican governor and a GOP-controlled legislature, Gov. Mike DeWine and lawmakers pushed a $420-million pandemic spending package through a special bipartisan panel late last month. Funded through the CARES Act, it offered grants to small businesses, bars and restaurants, low-income renters, arts groups and colleges and universities. Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benningoff, a Republican, gives credit to the federal government for the billions in aid previously sent out, but he said small businesses and people who have lost work need more federal assistance. “The election’s over,” Benninghoff said. “This is not a time for finger-pointing.” In neighboring New Jersey, the partisan divide over $4 billion in COVID-19 borrowing backed by the Democratic governor and Legislature prompted a court challenge by minority Republicans. The state’s high court sided with Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration, citing the unprecedented nature of the outbreak. Even so, Murphy has regularly pleaded with Congress for more aid. “It’s shameful that they have not acted in Congress, especially [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell and the Republican Senate, to throw a lifeline to small businesses,” he said. Republicans have proposed a $300-million aid package to small businesses and nonprofits, but the legislation is stalled. GOP lawmakers told the governor if he does not call a special session to address the need, many businesses and charities “might not survive the winter.” Lawmakers in one state, Illinois, threw up theirs hands and went home despite an unaddressed $3.9-billion budget deficit. They cited the health threat posed by the virus and hope for help from the nation’s capital. “If the federal government doesn’t stand up and step in, we’re in a very bad situation — for our schools, colleges and universities, healthcare programs, child care, senior services,” House Majority Leader Greg Harris, a Democrat, said. “This isn’t like all the blue states are hurting and all the red states are humming along. Everybody’s in bad shape.”

Pennsylvania high court rejects latest lawsuit challenging election

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-28/pennsylvania-high-court-rejects-lawsuit-challenging-election

Pennsylvania’s highest court on Saturday night threw out a lower court’s order preventing the state from certifying dozens of contests on its Nov. 3 election ballot in the latest lawsuit filed by Republicans attempting to thwart President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the battleground state. The state Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, threw out the three-day-old order, saying the underlying lawsuit was filed months after the expiration of a time limit in Pennsylvania’s expansive year-old mail-in voting law allowing for challenges to it. Justices also remarked on the lawsuit’s staggering demand that an entire election be overturned retroactively. “They have failed to allege that even a single mail-in ballot was fraudulently cast or counted,” Justice David Wecht wrote in a concurring opinion. The state’s attorney general, Democrat Josh Shapiro, called the court’s decision “another win for democracy.” President Trump and his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, meanwhile, have repeatedly and baselessly claimed that Democrats falsified mail-in ballots to steal the election from Trump. Biden beat Trump by more than 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, a state Trump had won in 2016. World & Nation The Trump campaign has withdrawn a central part of its lawsuit to stop certification of Joe Biden’s crucial election win in Pennsylvania. Nov. 16, 2020 The week-old lawsuit, led by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of western Pennsylvania, had challenged the state’s mail-in voting law as unconstitutional. As a remedy, Kelly and the other Republican plaintiffs had sought to either throw out the 2.5 million mail-in ballots submitted under the law — most of them by Democrats — or to wipe out the election results and direct the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature to pick Pennsylvania’s presidential electors. In any case, that request — for the state’s lawmakers to pick Pennsylvania’s presidential electors — flies in the face of a nearly century-old state law that already grants the power to pick electors to the state’s popular vote, Wecht wrote. Although the high court’s two Republicans joined the five Democrats in opposing those remedies, they split from Democrats in suggesting that the lawsuit’s underlying claims — that the state’s mail-in voting law might violate the constitution — are worth considering. Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough, elected as a Republican in 2009, had issued the order Wednesday to halt certification of any remaining contests, including apparently contests for Congress. It did not appear to affect the presidential contest, because a day earlier, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, had certified Biden as the winner of the presidential election in Pennsylvania. Wolf quickly appealed McCullough’s decision to the state Supreme Court, saying there was no “conceivable justification” for it. The lawsuit’s dismissal comes after Republicans have lost a flurry of legal challenges brought by the Trump campaign and its GOP allies filed in state and federal courts in Pennsylvania. On Friday, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia roundly rejected the Trump campaign’s latest effort to challenge the state’s election results. In that lawsuit, Trump’s campaign had complained that its observers had not been able to scrutinize mail-in ballots as they were being processed in two Democratic bastions, Philadelphia and Allegheny County, which is home to Pittsburgh. Trump’s lawyers vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court despite the judges’ assessment that the “campaign’s claims have no merit.”

Artists say Cuba government agrees to dialogue, tolerance after protests

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-28/artists-say-cuba-government-agrees-to-dialogue-tolerance-after-protests

A group of Cuban artists and intellectuals say they won an unusual government vow of greater tolerance for independent art on Saturday after a demonstration in front of the Culture Ministry. About 20 artists had gathered Friday and the crowd grew to 200 by late night, when Vice Minister Fernando Rojas and the directors of several associations affiliated with the governing Communist Party met with delegates of the demonstrators until after midnight. The officials agreed to talks on “an agenda of multiple topics with proposals by both sides,” said writer Katherine Bisquet. In addition, “We will be able to meet without being harassed in independent spaces. There is a truce for independent spaces.” The demonstration is unusual, as is official willingness to deal with the participants, in a country whose government historically has had little tolerance for open protest, tends to label dissenters as tools of its enemies abroad and has arrested hundreds of them. But those who turned up at Friday’s demonstration included people with a long history working in the government-run culture sector, including actor Jorge Perugurría, a star of the film “Strawberry and Chocolate”; director Fernando Pérez; playwright Yunior García and feminist activist Dianelys Alfonso. California A company funded by former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has proposed a $125-million gondola lift to fly customers over the park to Dodger Stadium. Nov. 26, 2020 There were moments of tension on Saturday when police surrounded the plaza where the demonstration took place and power went off for a time in the area, though it wasn’t clear whether that was related to the demonstration. “It is time for dialogue and I think it is important for you young people to be heard, and we are going to work for that,” Perugurría said before entering to meet with the authorities. “The thing that struck me most was the diversity of people from the cultural, political and social fields in Cuba who have been uniting ... [on] a series of demands, ” said Michael Bustamante, a specialist in Latin American history at Florida International University. He said that the demands “are very general” and that “not everybody will agree on how to proceed.” Even so, “in some ways it is unprecedented in recent history” in Cuba, he said, noting that it comes at a complex time for the island, which is suffering through the pandemic, an economic crisis and impending economic reforms, as well as waiting to see what policies the upcoming U.S. administration will adopt toward Cuba. The demonstration followed a Thursday night raid on a house where a group of activist artists were staging a sort of sit-in to demand the release of rapper Denis Solís, who had been sentenced for prison for insulting a police officer. Officials said they acted to enforce COVID-19 health restrictions because one of those inside had recently returned from the United States and was violating the required quarantine period. None of those removed from the house was reported arrested. Officials earlier had described the San Isidro group at the house as lacking true artistic merit. But numerous well-known artists and performers had publicly urged the government to show tolerance and hold a dialogue with the group.

Iran's supreme leader vows revenge for assassination of nuclear scientist

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-28/irans-supreme-leader-vows-revenge-over-slain-scientist

Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday demanded the “definitive punishment” of those behind the killing of a scientist who led Tehran’s disbanded military nuclear program, as the Islamic Republic blamed Israel for a slaying that has raised fears of reignited tensions across the Middle East. After years in the shadows, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi suddenly was to be seen everywhere in Iranian media, as his widow spoke on state television and officials publicly demanded revenge on Israel for the scientist’s slaying. Israel, long suspected of killing Iranian scientists a decade ago amid earlier tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program, has yet to comment on Fakhrizadeh’s killing Friday. However, the attack bore the hallmarks of a carefully planned, military-style ambush, the likes of which Israel has been accused of conducting before. The attack has renewed fears of a retaliatory strike by Iran against the U.S., Israel’s closest ally in the region, as it did earlier this year when a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian general. The U.S. military acknowledged moving an aircraft carrier back into the region, while an Iranian lawmaker suggested throwing out U.N. nuclear inspectors in response to the killing. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Fakhrizadeh “the country’s prominent and distinguished nuclear and defensive scientist.” Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state, said Iran’s first priority after the killing was the “definitive punishment of the perpetrators and those who ordered it.” He did not elaborate. Speaking earlier Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani blamed Israel for the killing. “We will respond to the assassination of Martyr Fakhrizadeh in a proper time,” Rouhani said. “The Iranian nation is smarter than falling into the trap of the Zionists. They are thinking to create chaos.” Both Rouhani and Khamenei said that Fakhrizadeh’s death would not stop the nuclear program. Iran’s civilian atomic program has continued its experiments and now enriches a growing uranium stockpile up to 4.5% purity in response to the U.S.’ 2018 withdrawal from the nuclear deal That’s still far below weapons-grade levels of 90%, though experts warn that Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium for at least two atomic bombs if it chose to pursue them. Analysts have compared Fakhrizadeh to Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the United States’ Manhattan Project in World War II that created the atom bomb. Fakhrizadeh headed Iran’s so-called Project Amad that Israel and the West have alleged was a military operation looking at the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that “structured program” ended in 2003. Iran long has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful. Fakhrizadeh’s widow appeared on state television in a black chador, saying his death would spark a thousand others to take up his work. “He wanted to get martyred and his wish came true,” she said. Hard-line Iranian media has begun circulating memorial images showing Fakhrizadeh standing alongside a machine-gun-cradling likeness of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Suleimani, whom the U.S. killed in the January drone strike Suleimani’s death led to Iran retaliating with a ballistic missile barrage that injured dozens of American troops in Iraq. Tehran also has forces at its disposal surrounding Israel, including troops and proxies in neighboring Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad — and to a lesser extent Hamas — in the Gaza Strip. The Iranian Guard’s naval forces routinely shadow and have tense encounters with U.S. Navy forces in the Persian Gulf as well. Hours after the attack, the Pentagon announced it had brought the aircraft carrier Nimitz back into the Middle East, an unusual move as the vessel already spent months in the region. It cited the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as the reason for the decision, saying “it was prudent to have additional defensive capabilities in the region to meet any contingency.” Iran has previously attacked Israeli interests abroad over the killing of its scientists, like in the case of the three Iranians recently freed in Thailand in exchange for a detained British-Australian academic. Iran also could throw out inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who have provided an unprecedented, real-time look at Iran’s nuclear program since the deal. Nasrollah Pezhmanfar, a hard-line lawmaker, said a statement calling to expel the “IAEA’s spy inspections” could be read Sunday, the parliament’s official website quoted him as saying. Friday’s attack happened in Absard, a village just east of the capital that is a retreat for the country’s elite. Iranian state television said an old truck with explosives hidden under a load of wood blew up near a sedan carrying Fakhrizadeh. As Fakhrizadeh’s sedan stopped, at least five gunmen emerged and raked the car with gunfire, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said. The precision of the attack led to the suspicion of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service being involved. The CIA separately declined to comment on the attack Saturday. State media has only said the attack killed Fakhrizadeh, though a statement Saturday from the European Union described the incident as killing “an Iranian government official and several civilians.” EU officials did not respond to requests for comment. In Tehran, a small group of hard-line protesters burned images of President Trump and President-elect Joe Biden, who has said his administration will consider reentering Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. And while burning an American and Israeli flag, the hard-liners criticized Iran’s foreign minister who helped negotiate the nuclear deal, showing the challenge ahead for Tehran if officials chose to come back to the accord.

Biden plans swift moves to protect and advance LGBTQ rights

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-28/biden-plans-swift-moves-to-protect-and-advance-lgbtq-rights

As vice president in 2012, Joe Biden endeared himself to many LGBTQ Americans by endorsing same-sex marriage even before his boss, President Obama. Now, as president-elect, Biden is making sweeping promises to LGBTQ activists, proposing to carry out virtually every major proposal on their wish lists. Among them: lifting the Trump administration’s near-total ban on military service for transgender people, barring federal contractors from anti-LGBTQ job discrimination, and creating high-level LGBTQ-rights positions at the State Department, National Security Council and other federal agencies. In many cases the measures would reverse executive actions by President Trump, whose administration took numerous steps to weaken protections for LGBTQ people and create more leeway for discrimination against them, ostensibly based on religious grounds. In a policy document, the Biden campaign said Trump and Vice President Mike Pence “have given hate against LGBTQ+ individuals safe harbor and rolled back critical protections.” Politics President-elect Joe Biden won his race by performing strongly in suburbs, building large margins among Black voters and chipping into Trump territory. Nov. 15, 2020 Beyond executive actions he can take unilaterally, Biden says his top legislative priority for LGBTQ issues is the Equality Act, passed by the House of Representatives last year but stalled in the Senate. It would extend to all 50 states the comprehensive anti-bias protections already afforded to LGBTQ people in 21 mostly Democratic-governed states, covering such sectors as housing, public accommodations and public services. Biden says he wants the act to become law within 100 days of taking office, but its future remains uncertain. Assuming the bill passes again in the House, it would need support from several Republicans in the Senate, even if the Democrats gain control by winning two runoff races in Georgia. For now, Susan Collins of Maine is the measure’s only GOP co-sponsor in the Senate. Critics, including prominent religious conservatives, say the bill raises religious freedom concerns and could require some faith-based organizations to operate against their beliefs. The Equality Act “is a dangerous game changer” in its potential federal threat to religious liberty, said the Rev. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), tried to strike a compromise last year that would have expanded LGBTQ rights nationwide while allowing exemptions for religious groups to act on beliefs that could exclude LGBTQ people. His proposal won support from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Seventh-day Adventist Church but was panned by liberal and civil rights groups. “Anti-equality forces are trying to use the framework of religious liberty to strip away individual rights,” said Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ-rights organization. Among the actions that Biden pledges to take unilaterally, scrapping Trump’s transgender military ban would be among the most notable. Jennifer Levi, a Massachusetts-based transgender rights lawyer, said it’s clear Biden will have the authority to do. Nicolas Talbott, a transgender man whom Levi has represented in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the ban, called that “a huge relief.” “I look forward to being allowed to re-enroll in ROTC so I can continue to train, keep up my fitness to serve, and become the best Army officer I can possibly be,” Talbott said via email. Some of Biden’s other promises: — Appoint an array of LGBTQ people to federal government positions. There’s wide expectation that Biden will nominate an LGBTQ person to a Cabinet post, with former presidential contender Pete Buttigieg among the possibilities. — Reverse Trump administration policies carving out religious exemptions allowing discrimination against LGBTQ people by social service agencies, healthcare providers, adoption and foster care agencies and other entities. — Reinstate Obama administration guidance directing public schools to allow transgender students to access bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams in accordance with their gender identity. The Trump administration revoked this guidance. — Allocate federal resources to help curtail violence against transgender people, particularly transgender women of color. Rights groups say at least 38 transgender or gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the U.S. this year. — Support legislative efforts to ban so-called conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors. — Bolster federal efforts to collect comprehensive data about LGBTQ people in the U.S. by adding questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to national surveys. — Ensure that LGBTQ rights are a priority for U.S. foreign policy and be prepared to use pressure tactics, including sanctions, against foreign governments violating those rights. Whatever happens in Washington, some activists worry that Republican-controlled state legislatures may push anti-LGBTQ bills, such as curtailing the ability of transgender youth to access certain medical treatments or participate in school sports. They are also concerned that an influx of conservative federal judges appointed by Trump might lead to rulings allowing religious exemptions. Earlier this month the U.S. Supreme Court — now with a solid conservative majority — heard arguments on whether a Catholic social services agency in Philadelphia should be able to turn away same-sex couples who want to be foster parents while continuing to receive local government funding. Tim Schultz, a religious freedom advocate, outlined two potential paths for the debate over the Equality Act: “ongoing legislative gridlock, regulatory trench warfare and judicial decisions, which will happen independently of what the president does,” or active engagement by Biden for a new strategy that can win bipartisan support in the Senate. The first path would provide only “temporary satisfaction,” given that regulatory moves can be undone by future presidents, said Schultz, president of the nonprofit 1st Amendment Partnership. Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, cited Biden’s campaign-trail appeals for unity — and his commitment to faith outreach — as positive signs for more engagement on the issue next year. “He and his team will be very well positioned to broker compromise if they want to, to get this done,” said Diament, who has advised both the Trump and Obama administrations.

New rule could allow gas, firing squads for U.S. executions

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-27/new-rule-could-allow-gas-firing-squads-for-u-s-executions

The Justice Department is quietly amending its execution protocols, no longer requiring federal death sentences to be carried out by lethal injection and clearing the way to use other methods such as firing squads and poison gas. The amended rule, published Friday in the Federal Register, allows the U.S. government to conduct executions by lethal injection or use “any other manner prescribed by the law of the state in which the sentence was imposed.” A number of states allow other methods of execution, including electrocution, inhaling nitrogen gas or death by firing squad. It remains unclear whether the Justice Department will seek to use any methods other than lethal injection for executions in the future. The rule — which goes into effect on Dec. 24 — comes as the Justice Department has scheduled five executions during the lame-duck period, including three just days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Opinion Courts have always given government officials wide latitude in controlling disease outbreaks. Not this time. Nov. 27, 2020 A Justice Department official said the change was made to account for the fact the Federal Death Penalty Act requires sentences be carried out “in the manner prescribed by the law of the state in which the sentence is imposed,” and some of those states use methods other than lethal injection. The official told the Associated Press that the federal government “will never execute an inmate by firing squad or electrocution unless the relevant state has itself authorized that method of execution.” The official said two executions scheduled in December would be done by lethal injection but didn’t provide information about the three others scheduled in January. The official spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the internal department protocols. The change is likely to set off intense criticism from Democrats and anti-death-penalty advocates, as the Trump administration tries to push through a number of rule changes before President Trump leaves office. A spokesperson for Biden told the AP earlier this month that the president-elect “opposes the death penalty now and in the future” and would work to end its use. But he did not say whether executions would be paused immediately once Biden takes office. Atty. Gen. William Barr restarted federal executions this year after a 17-year hiatus. This year, the Justice Department has put to death more people than during the previous half-century, despite waning public support from both Democrats and Republicans for its use. All states that use the death penalty allow lethal injection — and that is the primary method in all states where other methods are allowed, according to data compiled by the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. As lethal injection drugs become difficult to obtain, some states have begun looking at alternative methods for carrying out death sentences. Alabama joined Oklahoma and Mississippi in 2018 approving the use of nitrogen gas to execute prisoners, allowing the state to asphyxiate condemned inmates with the gas in some cases. In some states, inmates can choose the method of their execution. In Florida, for example, an inmate can specifically ask to be put to death by electrocution, and in Washington state, inmates can ask to be put to death by hanging. In Utah, prisoners sentenced before May 2004 can choose to be killed by a firing squad. The state law there also authorizes the use of a firing squad if lethal injection drugs aren’t available. In 2014, after a botched state execution in Oklahoma, President Obama directed the Justice Department to conduct a broad review of capital punishment and issues surrounding lethal injection drugs. Barr said in July 2019 that the review had been completed, allowing executions to resume, and approved a new procedure for lethal injections that replaced the three-drug combination previously used in federal executions with one drug, pentobarbital. The one-drug protocol is similar to the procedure used in several states including Georgia, Missouri and Texas. Before the Trump administration resumed executions this year, the federal government had put to death only three inmates since 1988. Though there hadn’t been a federal execution since 2003, until July the Justice Department had continued to approve death penalty prosecutions and federal courts had continued sentencing defendants to death. Trump has spoken often about capital punishment and his belief that executions serve as an effective deterrent and an appropriate punishment for some crimes, including mass shootings and the killings of police officers.

Family of jailed oil exec asks for Venezuelan leader's mercy

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-27/family-of-jailed-oil-exec-asks-for-venezuelan-leaders-mercy

The family of a Houston-based Citgo oil executive convicted and ordered to prison in Venezuela alongside five others appealed directly to President Nicolás Maduro on Friday for mercy. In an open letter, relatives of José Pereira, 63, wrote to Maduro that he has a long list of health problems that need medical attention. They ask for Maduro to free him — and the other five — so they can return home to their families in the United States. “Our purpose for this letter is not to enter into legal tirades about the case,” the letter says. “We only want to implore to your humanitarian and compassionate side.” The letter came a day after the Thanksgiving Day verdict finding all six guilty of corruption charges. They’ve been held for three years in Venezuela. The so-called Citgo 6 are employees of the Houston-based Citgo refining company, which is owned by Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA. They had been lured to Venezuela in November 2017 for a business meeting and were arrested. In addition to Pereira, the others convicted were Gustavo Cárdenas, Jorge Toledo, brothers Jose Luis Zambrano and Alirio Zambrano, and Tomeu Vadell — all U.S. citizens. The judge sentenced them to eight years and 10 months. Pereira, a permanent U.S. resident, had been promoted to interim Citgo president shortly before the arrest. He received a longer sentence, of 13 years. World & Nation Lawyers for the ‘Citgo 6,’ U.S. oil executives held for 3 years in Venezuela, say they were found guilty of corruption and sentenced to prison. Nov. 26, 2020 Relatives say the men were wrongly convicted, and the defense lawyers vowed to appeal the verdicts. Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice announced the verdicts and prison sentences, but officials in Maduro’s government have not commented on the trial’s outcome. Their arrests launched a corruption purge by Maduro’s government of PDVSA at a time when relations between Caracas and Washington were crumbling as Venezuela plummeted into economic and social crisis. They were also charged with financial crimes stemming from a never-executed proposal to refinance some $4 billion in Citgo bonds by offering a 50% stake in the company as collateral. Maduro at the time accused them of “treason.” They all pleaded not guilty. News media and rights groups were denied access to the trial in Caracas. Judge Lorena Cornielles, who oversaw the trial, did not respond to a letter from the Associated Press seeking permission to observe. Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has negotiated the release of other Americans held by hostile governments, traveled to Caracas in July and met with Maduro. Days later two of the Citgo employees — Cárdenas and Toledo — were put in house detention, and two weeks later the trial began. Venezuela has been in a years-long crisis that critics of Maduro blame on failed economic policies and growing authoritarian rule that has led at least 5 million Venezuelans to leave the country. President Trump pressed to remove Maduro through sweeping financial sanctions, and the U.S. Justice Department has indicted Maduro as a “narcoterrorist,” offering a $15-million reward for his arrest. It has yet to be seen how President-elect Joe Biden will approach Venezuela. Maduro has expressed hope for improved relations. Pereira’s family said in the letter that he suffers from at least seven chronic health problems, including diabetes and back trouble that requires surgery. “We ask solemnly and respectfully that you intercede in our case,” they asked Maduro. “So we can achieve freedom for these six men and allow them to return home to their loved ones.”

U.S. appeals court rejects Trump appeal over Pennsylvania race

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-27/us-appeals-court-rejects-trump-appeal-over-pennsylvania-race

President Trump’s legal team suffered yet another defeat in court Friday as a federal appeals court in Philadelphia roundly rejected its latest effort to challenge the state’s election results. Trump’s lawyers vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court despite the judges’ assessment that the “campaign’s claims have no merit.” “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote for the three-judge panel. The case had been argued last week in a lower court by Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who insisted during five hours of oral arguments that the 2020 presidential election had been marred by widespread fraud in Pennsylvania. However, Giuliani failed to offer any tangible proof of that in court. U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann had said that the campaign’s error-filled complaint, “like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together,” and he denied Giuliani the right to amend it for a second time. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called that decision justified. The three judges on the panel were all appointed by Republican presidents, including Bibas, a former University of Pennsylvania law professor appointed by Trump. Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, Trump’s sister, sat on the court for 20 years, retiring in 2019. Friday’s ruling comes four days after Pennsylvania officials certified their vote count for President-elect Joe Biden, who defeated Trump by more than 80,000 votes in the state. Nationally, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris garnered nearly 80 million votes, a record in U.S. presidential elections. Trump has said he hopes the Supreme Court will intervene in the race as it did in 2000, when its decision to stop the recount in Florida gave the election to Republican George W. Bush. On Nov. 5, as the vote count continued, Trump posted a tweet saying the “U.S. Supreme Court should decide!” Ever since, Trump and his surrogates have attacked the election as flawed and filed a flurry of lawsuits to try to block the results in six battleground states. But they’ve found little sympathy from judges, nearly all of whom dismissed their complaints about the security of mail-in ballots, which millions of people used to vote from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump perhaps hopes a Supreme Court he helped steer toward a conservative 6-3 majority would be more open to his pleas, especially since the high court upheld Pennsylvania’s decision to accept mail-in ballots through Nov. 6 by only a 4-4 vote last month. Since then, Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett has joined the court. “The activist judicial machinery in Pennsylvania continues to cover up the allegations of massive fraud,” Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis tweeted after Friday’s ruling. “On to SCOTUS!” In the case before Brann, the Trump campaign asked to disenfranchise the state’s 6.8 million voters, or at least the 700,000 who voted by mail in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other Democratic-leaning areas. “One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption,” Brann wrote in his Nov. 21 ruling. “That has not happened.” A separate Republican challenge that reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court this week seeks to stop the state from further certifying any races on the ballot. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration is fighting that effort, saying it would prevent the state’s Legislature and congressional delegation from being seated in the coming weeks. On Thursday, Trump said the Nov. 3 election was still far from over. Yet he offered the clearest signal to date that he would leave the White House peaceably on Jan. 20 if the electoral college formalizes Biden’s win, which appears certain. “Certainly I will. But you know that,” Trump said at the White House, taking questions from reporters for the first time since election day. Yet on Friday, he continued his baseless attacks on Detroit, Atlanta and other Democratic cities with large Black populations, calling them sources of “massive voter fraud.” And he claimed, without evidence, that a Pennsylvania poll watcher had uncovered computer memory drives that “gave Biden 50,000 votes” apiece. All 50 states must certify their results before the electoral college meets Dec. 14, and any challenge to the results must be resolved by Dec. 8. Biden won both the electoral college and popular vote by wide margins.

Trump administration moves ahead on gutting bird protections

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-27/trump-administration-moves-ahead-on-gutting-bird-protections

The Trump administration moved forward Friday on gutting a long-standing federal protection for the nation’s birds, over objections from former federal officials and many scientists that billions more birds will likely perish as a result. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published its take on the proposed rollback in the Federal Register. It’s a final step that means the change — greatly limiting federal authority to prosecute industries for practices that kill migratory birds — could be made official within 30 days. The wildlife service acknowledged in its findings that the rollback would have a “negative” effect on the many bird species covered by the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which includes hawks, eagles, seabirds, storks, songbirds and sparrows. Politics President Trump pardons former national security advisor Michael Flynn, rewarding a loyalist who pleaded guilty during the Russia investigation. Nov. 25, 2020 The move scales back federal prosecution authority for the deadly threats migratory birds face from industry — from electrocution on power lines, to wind turbines that knock them from the air and oil field waste pits where landing birds perish in toxic water. Industry operations kill an estimated 450 million to 1.1 billion birds annually, out of roughly 7 billion birds in North America, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and recent studies. The Trump administration maintains that the act should apply only to birds killed or harmed intentionally, and is putting that “clarifying” change into regulation. The change would “improve consistency and efficiency in enforcement,” the Fish and Wildlife Service said. The administration has continued to push the migratory bird regulation even after a federal judge in New York in August rejected the administration’s legal rationale. Two days after news organizations announced President Trump’s defeat by Democrat Joe Biden, federal officials advanced the bird treaty changes to the White House, one of the final steps before adoption. Trump was “in a frenzy to finalize his bird-killer policy,” David Yarnold, president of the National Audubon Society, said in a statement Friday. ”Reinstating this 100-year-old bedrock law must be a top conservation priority for the Biden-Harris Administration” and Congress. Steve Holmer with the American Bird Conservancy said the change would accelerate bird population declines that have swept North America since the 1970s. How the 1918 treaty gets enforced has sweeping ramifications for the construction of commercial buildings, electric transmission systems and other infrastructure, said Rachel Jones, vice president of the National Assn. of Manufacturers. Jones said the changes under Trump would be needed to make sure the bird law wasn’t used in an “abusive way.” That’s a long-standing complaint from industry lawyers despite federal officials’ contention that they bring criminal charges only rarely. It’s part of a flurry of last-minute changes under the outgoing administration benefiting industry. Others would expand Arctic drilling, favor development over habitat protections for imperiled species and potentially hamstring future regulation of environmental and public health threats, among other rollbacks.

S. Korea agency says N. Korea killed 2, shut capital to stop coronavirus

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-27/s-korea-agency-says-n-korea-executed-people-shut-capital

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered at least two people executed, banned fishing at sea and locked down the capital, Pyongyang, as part of frantic efforts to guard against the coronavirus and its economic damage, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Friday. Kim’s government also ordered diplomats overseas to refrain from any acts that could provoke the United States because it is worried about President-elect Joe Biden’s expected new approach toward North Korea, lawmakers told reporters after attending a private briefing by the National Intelligence Service. One of the lawmakers, Ha Tae-keung, quoted the NIS as saying Kim is displaying “excessive anger” and taking “irrational measures” over the pandemic and its economic impact. Ha said the NIS told lawmakers that North Korea executed a high-profile money changer in Pyongyang last month after holding the person responsible for a falling exchange rate. He quoted the NIS as saying that North Korea also executed a key official in August for violating government regulations restricting goods brought from abroad. The two people weren’t identified by name. North Korea has also banned fishing and salt production at sea to prevent seawater from being infected with the virus, the NIS told lawmakers. There are few ways to independently confirm the reported fishing ban and other information given by the NIS to the lawmakers. Ha didn’t say whether the ban applied to all North Korean waters or whether it was still in effect. North Korea recently placed Pyongyang and northern Jagang province under lockdown over virus concerns. Earlier this month, it imposed lockdown measures in other areas where officials found unauthorized goods and foreign currencies that were brought in, Ha cited the NIS as saying. North Korea also made an unsuccessful hacking attempt on at least one South Korean pharmaceutical company that was trying to develop a coronavirus vaccine, the NIS said. The agency has a mixed record in confirming developments in North Korea, one of the world’s most secretive nations. The NIS said it couldn’t immediately confirm the lawmakers’ accounts. North Korea has maintained that it hasn’t found a single coronavirus case on its soil, a claim disputed by outside experts, although it says it is making all-out efforts to prevent the virus’ spread. A major outbreak could have dire consequences because the North’s healthcare system remains crippled and suffers from a chronic lack of medical supplies. The pandemic forced North Korea to seal its border with China, its biggest trading partner and aid benefactor, in January. The closure, along with a series of natural disasters over the summer, dealt a heavy blow to the North’s economy, which has been under punishing U.S.-led sanctions. North Korea’s trade with China in the first 10 months of this year totaled $530 million, about 25% of the corresponding figure last year. The price of sugar and seasoning has shot up four times, Ha quoted the NIS as saying. North Korea monitoring groups in Seoul said the North Korean won-to-dollar exchange rate has recently fallen significantly because people found few places to use foreign currency after smuggling was largely cut off following the closure of the China border. According to the NIS briefing, North Korea ordered overseas diplomatic missions not to provoke the United States, warning their ambassadors of consequences if their comments or acts related to the U.S. cause any trouble in ties with Washington. North Korea’s government has remained silent over Biden’s election victory over President Trump, with whom Kim held three summits in 2018-19 over the North’s nuclear arsenal. While the diplomacy eventually stalled, the meetings helped Kim and Trump build up personal ties and stop the crude insults and threats of destruction they had previously exchanged. Lawmaker Kim Byung-kee cited the NIS as saying that North Korea is displaying anxiety as its friendly ties with Trump become useless and it has to start from scratch in dealing with the incoming Biden administration. Experts have been debating whether North Korea will resume major missile tests soon to try to get Biden’s attention. During past government changes in the U.S., North Korea often conducted big weapons launches in an attempt to increase its leverage in negotiations with a new U.S. administration. The NIS expects North Korea will hold a military parade ahead of a ruling party congress in January in a show of force timed with Biden’s inauguration. North Korea is also likely to use the Workers’ Party congress to lay out its basic policies toward the U.S., Kim Byung-kee cited the NIS as saying. Kim Jong Un has said the congress, the first of its kind in four years, will set new state objectives for the next five years. In a highly unusual admission of its policy failure in August, the Workers’ Party said North Korea’s economy had not improved due to severe internal and external barriers and that its previous developmental goals had been seriously delayed.

Germany preps vaccine drive as COVID cases hit 1 million

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-27/keep-cool-germany-preps-vaccine-drive-as-covid-cases-hit-1m

Hulking gray boxes are rolling off the production line at a factory in the southern town of Tuttlingen, ready to be shipped to the front in the next phase of Germany’s battle against the coronavirus as it became the latest country to hit the milestone of 1 million confirmed cases Friday. Man-sized freezers such as those manufactured by family-owned firm Binder GmbH could become a key part of the vast immunization program the German government is preparing to roll out when the first vaccines become available next month. That’s because one of the front-runners in the race for a vaccine is BioNTech, a German company that together with U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has developed a shot it says is up to 96% effective in trials but comes with a small hitch: It needs to be cooled to minus-94 degrees (Fahrenheit) for shipping and storage. Ensuring such temperatures, colder even than an Antarctic winter, is just one of the many challenges that countries face in trying to get their populations immunized. The effort has been compared to a military operation. Indeed, some countries, including Germany, are relying on military and civilian expertise to ensure the precious doses are safely transported from manufacturing plants to secret storage facilities, before being distributed. Germany has benefited from the market power that comes with being a member of the European Union. The 27-nation bloc’s executive Commission — led by former German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen — has spearheaded negotiations with vaccine makers, ordering more than a billion doses so far. German officials have said the country hopes to secure up to 300 million doses from the EU orders and bilateral deals with three manufacturers in Germany, including BioNTech and CureVac, a company based in Tuebingen that says its vaccine can be stored at regular refrigerator temperatures for up to three months. Its trials are not as far along, however, as Pfizer/BioNTech and others. The figure of 300 million is contingent on all vaccines being developed making it to market. That would be more than enough to immunize Germany’s population of 83 million, even if two shots are required, as seems likely. How exactly the vaccine is delivered to patients differs from country to country. In Germany, the federal government has delegated the task to its 16 states, which are now working to build large vaccination centers. The city-state of Berlin has drafted in Albrecht Broemme, a veteran of disaster management. The former Berlin fire chief later led Germany’s federal civil protection organization THW, where he helped organize disaster relief operations for floods, storms and quakes around the world. The 67-year-old is now coordinating the setting-up of six vaccine hubs in Berlin in a convention center, two former airports, an ice skating rink, a concert hall and an indoor cycle race track. Authorities want them ready by mid-December to begin vaccinating more than 3,000 people per day at each location. With just a few minutes to deliver each shot and mindful of keeping the number of people in each center at a minimum, Broemme and his colleagues are devising a one-way flow system similar to that found in large stores like furniture company Ikea. Each site will be run by a medical aid group, such as the Red Cross, with volunteers to help register and guide people through the venue. Like elsewhere, the first phase of vaccination in Berlin will likely focus on immunizing health care workers and vulnerable groups such as the elderly and those with chronic illnesses. About 20,000 people will be vaccinated each day, returning after three weeks for a booster shot. Demand is likely to outstrip supply at first, but that will change as more vaccines come onto the market. “We’re hopeful that approvals in the field of vaccination will be issued very quickly,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament on Thursday. “That won’t solve the problem immediately, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” Broemme has said he expects four-fifths of the vaccines initially available to need ultra-low cooling. That means every center will need a pharmacy that handles both the storage and thawing of vaccines. At the other end of the country in Tuttlingen, Binder GmbH, one of hundreds of medical device manufacturers in the town, some with a history dating back to the 19th century, is seeing demand for its freezers surge. Priced at $15,500-17,900, each device can keep tens of thousands of vials of vaccine at optimum temperature, says Peter Wimmer, the company’s head of innovation. “It’s plug and play,” he told the AP. “All you need is an electrical socket, switch it on and the device is ready to go.” Having the whole vaccination system ready to go at the touch of a button is a different matter, though. It is still unclear who will actually administer the vaccines in Berlin. Unlike Britain, which has a centralized National Health Service organizing the immunization drive, Germany is relying on doctors associations to provide the necessary medical staff. Doerthe Arnold, a spokeswoman for the Berlin branch of Germany’s Assn. of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, said they are still waiting for the state government to provide details on what will be required of doctors. “Despite the positive feedback from doctors practices that they’re willing to help out even more, providing medical personnel for the six vaccination centers will be a challenge,” she said. The limits of medical logistics were tested in spring, when huge worldwide demand for ventilators, therapeutic drugs, face masks and other protective equipment prompted bidding wars, bottlenecks and reports of faulty products. Global logistics company DHL estimates that to provide worldwide coverage of vaccines over the coming two years may require 15,000 flights. “The challenge is the sheer number of doses and the fact that it’s not clear which vaccine needs to go where,” Sabine Hartmann, a DHL spokeswoman, told the AP. “It’s not something a single company can do on its own. All logistics companies have to work together on this.”

Lawmakers throw pig organs on Taiwan parliament floor over U.S. pork and beef import policy

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-27/lawmakers-throw-pig-guts-punches-on-taiwan-parliament-floor

Lawmakers in Taiwan got into a fistfight and threw pig organs at each other Friday over a soon-to-be enacted policy that would allow imports of U.S. pork and beef. Premier Su Tseng-chang was due to give a regularly scheduled policy report to lawmakers on Friday morning about the pork policy when opposition party lawmakers from the Nationalist party, also known as the KMT, blocked his attempt to speak by dumping bags of pig organs. Legislators from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party attempted to stop them, resulting in chaos and an exchange of punches. A DPP lawmaker wrestled a KMT lawmaker to the floor in the scuffle. President Tsai Ing-wen’s administration lifted a longstanding ban on imports of U.S. pork and beef in August, in a move seen as one of the first steps toward possibly negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the U.S. The ban is due to be lifted in January. That decision has met with fierce opposition, both from the KMT and individual citizens. The new policy allows imports of pork with acceptable residues of ractopamine, a drug that some farmers add to animal feed that promotes the growth of lean meat. On Sunday, thousands of people marched in Taipei to protest the imports. U.S. pork would account for a small percentage of the island’s consumption, but the Nationalist party has seized on the issue in an effort to mobilize support following successive failures at the polls. “When you were in the opposition, you were against U.S. pork. Now that you’re in power, you’ve become a supporter of U.S. pork,” said KMT legislator Lin Wei-chou, who led the group of lawmakers protesting the policy on Friday. They wore black T-shirts that read “oppose ractopamine-pork.” DPP lawmakers called for peace. “You have blocked Premier Su from reposting to the parliament for 12 times, ” said Hsu Sheng-chieh, a DPP legislative member. “Please return to reason.”

Academic detained in Iran for 2 years returns to Australia

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-27/academic-detained-in-iran-for-2-years-returns-to-australia

British Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert arrived back in Australia on Friday and will soon reunite with her family after more than two years in an Iranian prison. Moore-Gilbert was met by public health officials and members of the Australian Defense Force after leaving her plane at Canberra Airport, less than 24 hours after being released from prison in Iran. Foreign Minister Marise Payne has said Moore-Gilbert, 33, will have to undergo quarantine due to COVID-19 concerns. The academic from Melbourne University was released after 804 days behind bars on spying charges. She was freed in exchange for the release of three Iranians who were held in Thailand. Australian media reported on Friday that Iranian authorities had detained her after discovering she was in a relationship with an Israeli citizen, which led to claims she was a spy for Israel. Fairfax Media reported that the Australian government played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in bringing Thailand to the table and engineering the prisoner swap. Fairfax said the discovery of Moore-Gilbert’s Israeli boyfriend led to Iranian authorities stopping her at Tehran’s airport as she was about to leave the country in 2018 after attending an academic conference. Authorities sentenced her to 10 years in prison for espionage. The Australian government and Moore-Gilbert rejected the allegations as baseless. Fairfax Media cited unidentified Australian government sources as saying the at-times delicate negotiations took more than six months. In Bangkok, Thai officials said they transferred three Iranians involved in a botched 2012 bomb plot back to Tehran. While they declined to call it a swap and Iran referred to the men as “economic activists,” the arrangement freed Moore-Gilbert and saw the three men, who were linked to a wider bomb plot targeting Israeli diplomats, return home to a heroes’ welcome. They wore Iranian flags draped over their shoulders, their faces largely obscured by black baseball caps and surgical masks. It was a sharp contrast to other prisoner exchanges Iran has trumpeted in the past, in which television anchors repeatedly said their names and broadcasters aired images of them reuniting with their families. In Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday he was “thrilled and relieved” that Moore-Gilbert had been released but added that it would take time for her to process her “horrible” ordeal. “The tone of her voice was very uplifting, particularly given what she has been through,” Morrison told Australia’s Network Nine. Despite her ordeal, Moore-Gilbert said in a statement that she had “nothing but respect, love and admiration for the great nation of Iran and its warm-hearted, generous and brave people.” Asked about the swap, Morrison said he “wouldn’t go into those details, confirm them one way or the other.” However, he said he could assure Australians there had been nothing done to prejudice their safety and no prisoners were released in Australia.

Venezuela judge convicts 6 American oil executives, orders prison

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-26/venezuela-judge-convicts-6-american-oil-execs-orders-prison

Six American oil executives held for three years in Venezuela were found guilty of corruption charges by a judge Thursday and immediately sentenced to prison, defense lawyers said, dashing hopes of a quick release that would send them home to their families in the United States. Some relatives had been bracing for the disheartening outcome, which came on the evening of Thanksgiving Day. Alirio Rafael Zambrano, brother to two of the men, said they were “undeniably innocent” and victims of “judicial terrorism.” No evidence in the case supports a guilty conviction, he said. “We, the family, are heartbroken to be separated even further from our loved ones,” Zambrano said. “We pray that the leaders of our nation step forward and continue to fight unceasingly for their freedom and human rights.” Attorney María Alejandra Poleo, who helped represent three of the men, said the case was “void of evidence.” “Of course, the defense will appeal the decision,” she said. The so-called Citgo 6 are employees of Houston-based Citgo refining company, which is owned by Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA. They had been lured to Venezuela three years ago for a business meeting and were arrested on corruption charges. Their arrest launched a purge by President Nicolás Maduro’s government of PDVSA and at a time when relations between Caracas and Washington were crumbling as Venezuela plummeted into economic and social crisis. Five of the men were sentenced to prison terms of 8 years and 10 months, while one of them received a 13-year sentence. Defense attorney Jesus Loreto said the five with lesser terms could be released on parole in a couple of years. Venezuelan officials did not immediately comment. One of the men, Tomeu Vadell, has said in a letter written in a Caracas jail and provided exclusively to the Associated Press before the verdict that he had hopes for a fair trial so he could walk free with his name cleared and go home to his family in the United States. “During the trial, the truth has proven undeniable,” Vadell said in the four-page hand-written letter. “It proves that I am innocent.” “I’m now reaching an intersection where if justice is done, I will be able to rebuild my life and try to compensate my family for all the lost moments,” he added. “The light is intense — the hope is great — give me freedom.” Vadell said it was especially painful to be separated during the Thanksgiving season from his wife, three adult children and a newborn grandson he has never held. “Before living this tragedy, these celebrations were very special times for our family,” Vadell wrote, saying he embraced the traditional American holiday after moving in 1999 from Caracas to Lake Charles, La., for a job with Citgo. “Now, they bring me a lot of sadness.” It’s the first time Vadell, or any of the so-called Citgo 6, had spoken publicly since being arrested and charged with in a purported big corruption scheme. He has been held at a feared Caracas jail called El Helicoide. The others convicted are Gustavo Cárdenas, Jorge Toledo and brothers Jose Luis Zambrano and Alirio Zambrano, all now U.S. citizens. Jose Pereira, a permanent resident, received the longest sentence. They were also charged with embezzlement stemming from a never-executed proposal to refinance some $4 billion in Citgo bonds by offering a 50% stake in the company as collateral. Maduro at the time accused them of “treason.” They all pleaded innocence. The men were summoned to the headquarters of PDVSA for what they were told was a budget meeting on Nov. 21, 2017. A corporate jet shuttled them to Caracas and they were told they would be home for Thanksgiving. Instead, military intelligence officers swarmed into the boardroom and hauled them off to jail. Their trial started four months ago and closing arguments took place Thursday. The judge immediately announced her verdict. The proceeding played out one day a week in a downtown Caracas court. Due to the pandemic, sessions were held in front of a bank of dormant elevators in a hallway, apparently to take advantage of air flowing through open windows. News media and rights groups were denied access to the hearings. There was no response to a letter addressed to Judge Lorena Cornielles seeking permission for the Associated Press to observe. The office of Venezuela’s chief prosecutor said prior to the verdict in a statement to AP that investigators found “serious evidence” that corroborated financial crimes potentially damaging to the state-run company. “The Citgo case has developed normally during all the stages established by the Venezuelan criminal process,” the statement said. Loreto said his client appeared to have been caught up in a “geopolitical conflict” of which he was not a part. He said Vadell’s name never appeared on any of the documents prosecutors read into evidence. “There’s nothing that refers to Tomeu in any way — directly or indirectly,” the lawyer said. “This is the story of a good guy being held against his will for all the wrong reasons.” Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has negotiated the release of other Americans held by hostile governments, traveled to Caracas in July and met with Maduro. He didn’t win the executives’ freedom, but days later two of them — Cárdenas and Toledo — were freed from jail and put in house detention. Two weeks later, the long-delayed trial began. Richardson told AP that conversations with the Venezuelan government continue despite his meeting with Maduro being “a little stormy.” He said he he believes there is an opening tied to President-elect Joe Biden and a desire by Maduro to improve relations with Washington. “I think the Venezuelans have been straight with me, but more progress needs to be made,” Richardson said before the verdict. “My hope is to have something positive by Christmas.” It is not clear what approach Biden will take toward Maduro. President Trump aggressively pressed to remove Maduro through sweeping financial sanctions, and the U.S. Justice Department has indicted Maduro as a “narcoterrorist,” offering a $15-million reward for his arrest. Vadell’s letter steered clear of politics. He didn’t mention Maduro or speak about his jailers, though he did express concern about the “consequences of repercussions” of speaking out. With encouragement from his family, Vadell broke his silence, taking a risk relatives said was necessary. “I believe it’s more important that the light of hope illuminates us,” Vadell wrote. “May the light of hope put an end to the sadness of my family.” The five other men did not respond to invitations the AP made through their lawyers to comment. Vadell’s daughter, Cristina Vadell, said in a phone interview from Lake Charles that her father isn’t the kind of person who seeks attention. Rather, he prefers to focus on work and his family. During his 35-year career with PDVSA and Citgo, Vadell ended up running a refinery in Lake Charles and then became vice president of refining. The letter attempts to expose this side of his life, she said. “I think he was willing to take some risks and open some hearts to allow him to come home,” she said. “I think he’s still wondering ‘What happened?’ He went to a work meeting and never came home.”

Tens of thousands bid farewell to Diego Maradona in Argentina

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2020-11-26/tearful-thousands-bid-farewell-to-maradona-in-argentina

Tens of thousands of fans, many weeping but eager to honor Diego Maradona, filed past the coffin of Argentina’s most iconic soccer star on Thursday, some confronting police who tried to maintain order at the country’s presidential mansion. Fans blew kisses as they passed Maradona’s wooden casket in the main lobby of the presidential Casa Rosada. Some struck their chests with closed fists, shouting, “Let’s go Diego.” The casket was covered in an Argentine flag and the No. 10 shirt Maradona famously wore for the national team. Dozens of other shirts of different soccer teams tossed in by weeping visitors were scattered on and around the casket. Maradona died Wednesday after suffering a heart attack in the house outside Buenos Aires where he had been recovering from a brain operation on Nov. 3. Soccer The impulsiveness and childishness that made Diego Maradona wreak havoc on the field also made him the most dominant and joyous player of his generation, perhaps ever, writes columnist Dylan Hernández. Nov. 25, 2020 Open visitation began at 6:15 a.m. after a few hours of privacy for family and close friends. The first to bid farewell were his daughters and close family members. His ex-wife Claudia Villafañe came with Maradona’s daughters Dalma and Gianinna. Later came Verónica Ojeda, also his ex-wife, with their son, Dieguito Fernando. Jana Maradona, whom the soccer legend recognized as his daughter only a few years ago, also attended the funeral. Then came former teammates of the 1986 World Cup-winning squad including Oscar Ruggeri. Other Argentine footballers, such as Boca Juniors’ Carlos Tévez, showed up, too. Some fans grew impatient as police tried to maintain order, throwing bottles and pieces of metal fencing at police outside the presidential offices in the heart of Buenos Aires. Officers at one point used tear gas to try to control them. Shortly before noon Argentine President Alberto Fernández arrived and placed on the casket a shirt of Argentinos Juniors, Maradona’s first club as a professional. In tears, Fernández also laid two handkerchiefs of the human rights organization Madres de Plaza de Mayo, who wore them for years to protest the disappearance of their children under Argentina’s military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. Maradona, an outspoken leftist who had an image of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara tattooed on one bicep, was a friend of the Madres and of other human rights organizations. The lines started forming outside Casa Rosada only hours after Maradona’s death was confirmed and grew to several blocks. The first fan to visit was Nahuel de Lima, 30, using crutches to move because of a disability. “He made Argentina be recognized all over the world, who speaks of Maradona also speaks of Argentina,” De Lima told the Associated Press. “Diego is the people.... Today the shirts, the political flags don’t matter. We came to say goodbye to a great that gave us a lot of joy.” Lidia and Estela Villalba cried near the exit of the lobby. Each had a Boca Juniors shirt and an Argentine flag on their shoulders. “We told him we love him, that he was the greatest,” they said. Those waiting to enter Casa Rosada were mostly wearing masks because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they struggled to maintain social distance. Social worker Rosa Noemí Monje, 63, said she and others overseeing health protocols understood the emotion of the moment. “It is impossible to ask them to distance. We behave respectfully and offer them sanitizer and face masks,” she said. Monje also paid her last tribute to Maradona. “I told him: To victory always, Diego,” Monje said as she wept. A huge mural of Maradona’s face was painted on the tiles covering the Plaza de Mayo, near Casa Rosada, which was decorated with a giant black ribbon at the entrance.

Schools nationwide struggle to stay open as quarantines sideline staff

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-26/schools-struggle-to-stay-open-as-quarantines-sideline-staff

The infection of a single cafeteria worker was all it took to close classrooms in the small Lowellville school district in northeastern Ohio, forcing at least two weeks of remote learning. Not only did the worker who tested positive for the coronavirus need to quarantine, but so did the entire cafeteria staff and most of the transportation crew, because some employees work on both. The district of about 500 students sharing one building had resumed in-person instruction with masks and social distancing and avoided any student infections. But without enough substitute workers, administrators had no choice but to temporarily abandon classroom operations and meal services. “It boils down to the staff,” Lowellville Supt. Geno Thomas said. “If you can’t staff a school, you have to bring it to remote.” Around the country, contact tracing and isolation protocols are sidelining school employees and closing school buildings. The staffing challenges force students out of classrooms, even in districts where officials say the health risks of in-person learning are manageable. And the absences add to the strain from a wave of early retirements and leaves taken by employees worried about health risks. It’s another layer of the “tremendous stress” faced by administrators and educators navigating the pandemic, said Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Assn. of School Administrators, the nation’s leading school superintendents association. The superintendent in Groton, Conn., recently announced that the entire district would transition to distance learning for two weeks following Thanksgiving — a decision driven primarily by a staffing shortage. “When you have the wrong teacher, like an art teacher who over a two-day period sees as many as 80 children, you’ve got the possibility of a really significant number of contacts,” he said. “It’s not being transmitted in schools apparently, but we have lots of cases of children and staff members who are getting it very typically from a family member.” In Kansas, the 27,000-student Shawnee Mission School District announced recently that middle and high school students would return to remote learning until January because of difficulty keeping buildings staffed. Scores of employees are quarantined because of known or potential exposure. “It is important to emphasize that this decision is not being made because of COVID-19 transmission within our schools,” Supt. Mike Fulton wrote to families. He said available substitute teachers would be shifted to elementary schools to keep up in-person learning for younger students. Social distancing, wearing masks, washing hands and completing daily COVID-19 assessments “seem to be working to keep transmission low within schools,” Fulton said. The effects of school staffing struggles have prompted some officials to suggest relaxing quarantine rules. On Monday, leaders of several Louisiana public school systems told the state House health committee that too many students are missing in-person classroom instruction because they have been sent home for 14 days to quarantine. The state health department said it would not recommend any changes to quarantine regulations. “We have a lot of healthy kids who are home when they don’t need to be,” West Baton Rouge Parish Supt. Wesley Watts told lawmakers. “We’re not asking to do away with quarantine. We’re just asking for some modifications.” In Missouri, Republican Gov. Mike Parson took a different approach to trying to keep schools open. He announced new guidance this month that teachers and students exposed to an infected person no longer have to quarantine for two weeks as long as both people were wearing masks. He said quarantines had interrupted learning and created staff shortages. Shortages of substitute teachers have compounded the personnel problems. “I think everybody understands when you can’t have enough subs to fill the roles, it’s also a safety issue: You can’t have that many children without support from adults,” said Julie Mackett, a kindergarten teacher in Perrysburg, Ohio, who went through her own two-week quarantine early in the school year after a student tested positive. Staffing shortages in her district in mid-November moved up the start of a return to remote learning around Thanksgiving for Perrysburg’s high schoolers, and the district was closely monitoring elementary schools. Cincinnati’s public school system pointed to staffing concerns and surging virus cases in southwest Ohio when it decided to shift to distance learning until after winter break. It noted that community spread of the virus directly affects staff absences. “Teachers and staff must stay home when sick, when in quarantine as a result of a close contact or as needed to take care of family members,” the district said.

Ethiopian PM says troops ordered to move on Tigray capital

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-26/ethiopian-pm-says-troops-ordered-to-move-on-tigray-capital

Ethiopia’s prime minister said Thursday the army has been ordered to move on the embattled Tigray regional capital after his 72-hour ultimatum ended for Tigray leaders to surrender, and he warned the city’s half-million residents to stay indoors and disarm. The military offensive “has reached its final stage” after three weeks of fighting, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office said. That means tanks and other weaponry can close in on Mekele, whose residents were warned of “no mercy” if they didn’t move away from Tigray leaders in time. That caused international alarm as rights groups said such wording could violate international law and put civilians in further danger. “We will take utmost care to protect civilians,” Abiy’s statement said. It also asserted that thousands of Tigray militia and special forces surrendered during the 72-hour period. The United Nations has reported people fleeing Mekele, but communications and transport links remain severed to Tigray, and it’s not clear how many people received the warnings in time. Tigray regional leaders couldn’t immediately be reached. “What is happening is beyond words, and it is heartbreaking to see a great country is collapsing,” said a message sent from a Mekele resident on Wednesday and seen by the Associated Press. The message expressed hopelessness at not being able to reach loved ones elsewhere in the region, adding, “Ohhhhhhhh GOD!” The international community is pleading for immediate de-escalation, dialogue and humanitarian access as Ethiopian forces have fought their way through Tigray to Mekele. “The hostilities in Ethiopia are of major concern for the EU. Next to the casualties, the danger of a major humanitarian crisis is imminent. An immediate de-escalation is needed by all parties,” European Union commissioner for crisis management Janez Lenarcic tweeted Thursday. But Abiy, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, has rejected international “interference.” His government has said three high-level African Union envoys for the conflict can meet with Abiy, but not with the Tigray leaders. Abiy’s office on Thursday for the first time did say a “humanitarian access route” would open under the management of the country’s Ministry of Peace, with no details. It also said distribution of supplies has begun in areas of Tigray now under government control. That came hours after the U.N. said shortages have become “very critical” in the Tigray region as its population of 6 million remains sealed off. It remains difficult to verify claims in the fighting that erupted Nov. 4 between Ethiopian forces and the heavily armed forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which once dominated Ethiopia’s government but has been sidelined under Abiy’s rule. The two governments now regard each other as illegal. Fuel and cash are running out in Tigray, more than 1 million people are now estimated to be displaced and food for nearly 100,000 refugees from Eritrea will be gone in a week, according to the U.N. update released overnight. And more than 600,000 people who rely on monthly food rations haven’t received them this month. Travel blockages are so dire that even within Mekele the U.N. World Food Program cannot obtain access to transport food from its warehouses there. A statement this week from a civil society representative in the region, seen by the AP, described heavy bombardment of communities elsewhere that has kept many residents from fleeing. Other people are frantically moving within the Tigray region from one district to another and “living within church compounds, streets, schools, health centers,” the statement warned, and it pleaded for a safe corridor to ship in aid as food runs out. Human Rights Watch is warning that “actions that deliberately impede relief supplies” violate international humanitarian law, and that the complete shutdown of communications “could amount to a form of collective punishment by imposing penalties on people without a clear lawful basis.” Another crisis is unfolding as more than 40,000 Ethiopian refugees have fled into a remote area of Sudan, where humanitarian groups and local communities struggle to feed, treat and shelter them. Nearly half the refugees are children under 18. Many fled with nothing. “When it is cold, it hurts so much,” said one wounded refugee, Alam Kafa. “At night, I have to wrap tightly with a blanket so I can sleep. But I don’t sleep at night.” “Just to imagine for everything, literally for everything, starting from your food, ending with your water drinking, ending just to go for the toilet facilities and washing your hands, for everything you depend on somebody else,” said Javanshir Hajiyev with aid group Mercy Corps. “This is really a very dire situation. I can’t stress how difficult it is.”

Culled mink rise from their shallow graves in Denmark

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-26/culled-mink-resurface-after-burial-in-denmark

Some of the thousands of mink culled to minimize the risk of them retransmitting the new coronavirus to humans have risen from their shallow graves in western Denmark after gases built up inside the bodies, Danish authorities said Thursday. “The gases cause the animals to expand and in the worst cases, the mink get pushed out of the ground,” Jannike Elmegaard of the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration said. He said it affected “a few hundred” animals. The mink are buried in trenches that are 8.25 feet deep and 10 feet wide. A first layer of about 1 meter of dead mink are then covered with chalk before another layer of animals is laid, covered again with chalk and then with dirt, Elmegaard told the Associated Press. But because the soil where they are buried is sandy, some have reemerged. “We assume it is the mink that were in the upper layer that pop up,” he added calling it “a natural process.” “Had the earth been more clayish, then it would have been heavier and the mink would not have resurfaced,” he told the AP. The animals who resurface are reburied elsewhere, and authorities guard the site to keep away foxes and birds. Science & Medicine The more cases that are reported, the more deaths we would expect to see, right? The answer is both yes and no, experts said. Denmark culled thousands of mink in the northern part of the country after 11 people were sickened by a mutated version of the coronavirus that had been observed among the animals. Earlier this month, the Social Democratic minority government got a majority in parliament to back its decision to cull all of Denmark’s roughly 15 million mink, including healthy ones outside the northern part of the country where infections have been found. The proposed law also bans mink farming until the end of 2021. The government had announced the cull despite not having the right to order the killing of healthy animals, an embarrassing misstep that caused it to scramble to build political consensus for a new law. The coronavirus evolves constantly as it replicates, but to date, none of the identified mutations has changed anything about COVID-19’s transmissibility or lethality.

'Why now?' Somalia's advocates are dismayed as U.S. considers troop pullout

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-26/why-now-dismay-as-us-considers-troop-pullout-from-somalia

No country has been involved in Somalia’s future as much as the United States. Now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. troops from the Horn of Africa nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. Three decades of chaos — from warlords to the Al Qaeda affiliate Shabab to the emergence of an Islamic State-linked group — have ripped apart the country that only in the last few years has begun to find its footing. The U.S. Embassy returned to Somalia just last year, 28 years after diplomats and staffers fled. Somalia faces a tense election season that begins in the next few weeks to decide the presidency and parliament. United Nations experts say the Shabab, supporting its 5,000 to 10,000 fighters on a rich diet of extorting from businesses and civilians, is improving its bomb-making skills. And an ever bigger military force, the African Union’s 19,000-strong AMISOM, has begun its own withdrawal from the country, whose own forces are widely considered unready to assume full responsibility for security. It is not clear whether President Trump will order the withdrawal of the approximately 700 U.S. troops currently in Somalia, similar to his orders for Afghanistan and Iraq, or whether the reported consideration will be dropped before he leaves office in January. But the idea is taken seriously, even as U.S. drone strikes are expected to continue in Somalia against Shabab and Islamic State fighters from neighboring Djibouti and Kenya — where the Shabab carried out a deadly attack against U.S. forces early this year. The U.S. Africa Command has seen a “definitive shift” this year in the Shabab’s focus to attack U.S. interests in the region, a new report by the Department of Defense inspector general said Wednesday — and the command says the Shabab is Africa’s most “dangerous” and “imminent” threat. Here’s what’s at stake: “The first thing ... it’s disastrous for Somalia’s security sector, it just causes that first panic reaction: You know, why now?” said Samira Gaid, a Somali national security specialist who served as senior security advisor to the prime minister and special advisor to the head of AMISOM. “Especially since over the past 3½ years in particular the security sector really improved, and we tried to work closely with” the U.S., she told the Associated Press. Recent progress includes a “war council” between the U.S. and Somali governments, she said, in which the U.S. helps to draw up military plans. “We call them Somali-led operations, but really the U.S. is hand-holding us through it.” The U.S. military also trains Somalia’s elite Danab special forces that now number around 1,000, and is providing Danab with air cover and intelligence, Gaid said. “Danab was expanding, that’s why this is so shocking,” she said. “Is it possible to move forward with that plan now?” Danab units are now operational in four of Somalia’s five member states, the U.S. military says, and they conducted about 80% of the Somali national army’s offensive forces in the quarter ending Sept. 30 and “nearly all” operations against the Shabab. The Danab forces also serve as a model for how the rest of Somalia’s military forces can develop to be “more meritocracy and less clan-focused,” said Omar Mahmood, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. The loss of U.S. forces is widely seen as a gain for Shabab, and for the far smaller presence of hundreds of Islamic State-affiliated fighters in Somalia’s north. “From the Shabab perspective, they just need to hold out,” Mahmood said, and they might even ask themselves what need there is for any potential Taliban-style negotiations. The Shabab’s propaganda has always emphasized the extremist group’s staying power, Gaid said, sending the message: “These external forces will always leave.” A U.S. withdrawal would play into that narrative. Gaid said she doesn’t see any other country stepping into the U.S. military’s role, though a withdrawal would open space for powers like Russia and China. Somalia also has about 1,500 special forces that have been trained by Turkish troops, she said, but “they don’t benefit from Turkish advisors on the ground.” Without U.S. forces, the Shabab “will find it easier to overrun AMISOM, let alone the Somali national army,” Vanda Felbab-Brown, co-director of the Africa Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution, told an online event. And with neighboring Ethiopia’s conflict increasing pressure to withdraw more of its forces from Somalia, a U.S. withdrawal “is really just the worst time.” The support that U.S. forces give AMISOM is “huge,” Gaid said, including as a key interlocutor with Somali forces. And with AMISOM also drawing down by the end of next year, “it’s a tricky time.” The implementation of the plan for Somali forces to take over the country’s security next year is “badly off track,” said the new report by the Department of Defense inspector general. Somali forces cannot contain the Shabab threat on its own, the report said. They still rely on the international community for financial support, and yet they “sometimes go unpaid for months.” Maybe a U.S. withdrawal would lead the AMISOM force to adjust its own withdrawal timeline “more realistically,” Mahmood said. The U.S. has been the most engaged security partner in Somalia “willing to get down and dirty,” he added. But no other country appears to have the willingness to replace what U.S. forces are doing on the ground. And a withdrawal of both the U.S. and AMISOM would risk leaving the impression that “Somalia increasingly can rely less and less on external security partners,” Mahmood said. Somalia is on the brink of elections, with the parliamentary vote scheduled in December and the presidential one in February. What was meant to be the country’s first one-person-one-vote election in decades instead remains limited by disputes between the federal and regional governments — which the U.S. has said also weakens command and control of Somali forces. At least keep U.S. forces in Somalia until after the elections, Felbab-Brown wrote this week, warning of possible postelection violence or the Shabab taking advantage of any chaos. Even though U.S. forces don’t provide election security, “our problem is, with the U.S. focused on a drawdown of troops, it would not be focused on how the elections are going politically,” Gaid said. The U.S. has been one of the most vocal actors in Somalia’s election process, she said. “We were all expecting after November that the U.S. would be clear on a lot of stuff. Now it seems we have to wait.”

Rocky, a tiny owl that was found on the Rockefeller tree, returns to the wild

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-26/rocky-the-christmas-tree-stowaway-owl-returns-to-the-wild

Rocky the stowaway owl is back in the wild. The tiny Saw-whet owl was named Rockefeller after it was found by a worker setting up the holiday tree Nov. 16 at Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center. The owl was apparently trapped in the 75-foot-tall Norway spruce when it was cut down 170 miles north, in upstate New York, on Nov. 12. The female owl, initially thought to be male, was uninjured but hadn’t eaten for at least three days when she was discovered and sent to Ravensbeard Wildlife Center in the Hudson Valley town of Saugerties. There, a rehabilitator nursed her back to health for a week with plenty of mice before Rocky was cleared to continue her migratory journey south. On Tuesday evening, rehabilitator Ellen Kalish held the winsome raptor aloft in a field against a backdrop of rounded mountains. In a video posted on Ravensbeard’s Facebook page, Rocky sits quietly on Kalish’s fingers before winging her way over to a nearby grove of pines. “She is a tough little bird, and we’re happy to see her back in her natural habitat,” the center wrote on Facebook. “We are sure that Rocky will feel your love and support through her journey south.”

Thailand approves transfer of 3 Iranians as Australian is freed

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-26/thailand-approves-transfer-of-3-iranians-as-australian-freed

Thai officials said Thursday they approved the transfer back to Tehran of three Iranians who were involved in a botched 2012 bomb plot, as Iran released a 33-year-old Australian academic who was imprisoned for more than two years on spying charges. Thai officials did not go so far as to call it a prisoner swap or say what involvement Australia might have had in the arrangement. Iranian state TV said Tehran released British-Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert in exchange for three Iranians held abroad. Chatchom Akapin, Thailand’s deputy attorney general, told the Associated Press that Thai authorities had approved the transfer of the prisoners under an agreement with Iran. “These types of transfers aren’t unusual,” he said. “We transfer prisoners to other countries and at the same time receive Thais back under this type of agreement all the time.” In Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was “thrilled and relieved” that Moore-Gilbert had been released but added it would take time for her to process her “horrible” ordeal. Flight data obtained by the AP showed the plane filmed on the tarmac at the Tehran airport had this week twice flown from Bangkok to Tehran, and then on to Doha, Qatar. The plane’s tail number links it to an Australian private air carrier called Skytraders, which describes itself as a “principal provider of air services to government.” An employee at the company declined to comment when reached by the AP. The bomb plot of the three Iranians was exposed in 2012 when an accidental explosion blew apart the Bangkok villa where they were staying. Israeli and Thai officials have said the plot was aimed at Israeli diplomats in Bangkok — though Iran denied the allegations and the men were never charged with terrorism. Two of the men, Saeid Moradi and Mohammad Kharzei, were convicted in Thailand in 2013. Moradi was sentenced to life for attempting to murder a police officer, while Kharzei was sentenced to 15 years for possessing explosives. Moradi, a factory technician from Tehran and a former soldier, lost parts of both legs as he tried to flee the villa on a crowded Bangkok street. He was carrying explosives from the house and dropped them in the street as police tried to stop him. The third suspect, Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, was detained in Malaysia. In 2017, a federal court there ordered his extradition to Thailand. Israeli officials on Thursday had no immediate comment on the release of the Iranians. Iran’s report of the prisoner swap was scant on detail, saying only that the Iranians had been imprisoned for trying to bypass sanctions on Iran. Morrison said he had spoken with Moore-Gilbert on Thursday. “The tone of her voice was very uplifting, particularly given what she has been through,” Morrison told Australia’s Network Nine. Asked about the swap, Morrison said he “wouldn’t go into those details, confirm them one way or the other” but said he could assure Australians there had been nothing done to prejudice their safety and no prisoners were released in Australia. In a statement, Moore-Gilbert thanked Australia’s government and diplomats for securing her release, as well as supporters who campaigned for her freedom. Despite her ordeal, Moore-Gilbert said she had “nothing but respect, love and admiration for the great nation of Iran and its warm-hearted, generous and brave people.” Moore-Gilbert was a Melbourne University lecturer on Middle Eastern studies when she was picked up at the Tehran airport as she tried to leave the country after attending an academic conference in 2018. She was sent to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, convicted of spying and sentenced to 10 years. She had vehemently denied the charges and maintained her innocence. She was one of several Westerners held in Iran on widely criticized espionage charges that activists and U.N. investigators believe is a systematic effort to leverage their imprisonment for money or influence in negotiations with the West. Tehran denies it. Moore-Gilbert wrote in letters to Morrison that she had been imprisoned “to extort” the Australian government. Her detention had strained relations between Iran and the West at a time of already escalating tensions, which reached a fever pitch earlier this year following the American killing of a top Iranian general in Baghdad and retaliatory Iranian strikes on a U.S. military base. Iran state TV aired footage showing her clad in a gray hijab sitting at what appeared to be a greeting room at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran. She was later seen getting on an Australian-flagged white aircraft, shown to her seat by a man in a suit. The TV report did not elaborate on the Iranians it described as “economic activists” freed in exchange for Moore-Gilbert. They wore Iranian flags draped over their shoulders, black baseball caps pulled down over their eyes and surgical masks, outfits apparently designed to conceal their identities. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, welcomed the three Iranians at the airport. International pressure has been building on Iran to release Moore-Gilbert. She has gone on repeated hunger strikes and her health has deteriorated during long stretches in solitary confinement. Over the summer, she was transferred to the remote Qarchak Prison, east of Tehran, as fears escalated over the spread of the coronavirus in the country’s notoriously crowded prisons. Moore-Gilbert had appealed to the Australian government to work harder for her release. In her letters to the prime minister, she wrote that she had been subjected to “grievous violations” of her rights, including psychological torture.

Trump administration denies permit for controversial Alaska mine

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-25/trump-administration-denies-permit-for-divisive-alaska-mine

The Trump administration on Wednesday denied a permit for a controversial gold and copper mine near the headwaters of the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery in southwest Alaska. The Army Corps of Engineers said in a statement that the permit application to build the Pebble Mine was denied under both the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act. The corps said the discharge plan from the Pebble Limited Partnership, the mine’s backers, didn’t comply with Clean Water Act guidelines. The agency “concluded that the proposed project is contrary to the public interest,” according to the statement from Col. Damon Delarosa, commander of the corps’ Alaska district. Pebble partnership CEO John Shively said he was dismayed, especially after the corps had indicated in an environmental impact statement in July that the mine and fishery could coexist. “One of the real tragedies of this decision is the loss of economic opportunities for people living in the area,” Shively said in a statement. The environmental review “clearly describes those benefits, and now a politically driven decision has taken away the hope that many had for a better life. This is also a lost opportunity for the state’s future economy.” The denial comes as somewhat of a surprise. The Corps of Engineers in July released an environmental review that the mine developer saw as laying the groundwork for key federal approvals. The review said that, under normal operations, Pebble Mine, proposed for southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, “would not be expected to have a measurable effect on fish numbers and result in long-term changes to the health of the commercial fisheries in Bristol Bay.” World & Nation A giant open-pit copper and gold dig above Alaska’s Bristol Bay could yield sales of more than $20 billion in two decades, but Pebble Mine would place the world’s greatest wild salmon run at risk forever. Oct. 23, 2019 In August, however, the corps said it had determined that discharges at the mine site would cause “unavoidable adverse impacts to aquatic resources” and laid out required efforts to reduce those effects. That prompted Alaska’s Republican U.S. senators to oppose the project. Sen. Dan Sullivan, who won reelection in November, went so far as to declare the project “dead.” Canada-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., which owns the Pebble Limited Partnership, said it had submitted a mitigation plan Nov. 16. If the project were to have secured approval from the corps, there was still no guarantee it would have been built. It would have needed state approval, and President-elect Joe Biden has expressed opposition to the project. Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency withdrew restrictions on development that were proposed — but never finalized — under the Obama administration and said it planned to work with the corps to address concerns. Critics of the project saw Pebble as getting a lifeline under the Trump administration. However, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was among those who voiced opposition earlier this year. The president said in August he would “listen to both sides” on the issue. The Pebble partnership had praised the corps’ environmental review, while critics of the project said it lacked scientific rigor.

U.K. eases restrictions so families can gather over Christmas

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-24/uk-eases-restrictions-so-families-can-gather-over-christmas

British authorities gave the green light Tuesday to holiday reunions, relaxing restrictions on social mixing over Christmas and offering arriving international travelers a way to cut short quarantine if they test negative for COVID-19. The U.K. government and administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland struck a deal that will ease limits on travel and socializing over the festive period so that friends and families can get together. Over the five days between Dec. 23 and 27, up to three households can form a “Christmas bubble” and members can move freely between them. Those travelling to and from Northern Ireland will be permitted to travel for an additional day either side. People are currently barred from visiting members of other households in much of the U.K., and there are limits on travel to high-infection areas, Cabinet minister Michael Gove said the agreement “will offer hope for families and friends who have made many sacrifices over this difficult year.” Government scientific advisers have signed off on the holiday plan, though scientists have warned it will likely lead to an increase in coronavirus infections. Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, noted that the easing will be taking place when schools will be closed, which may tamp down on transmissions. “Christmas, whether or not we celebrate the day as a religious festival, may be what we need to make it through the rest of winter,” he said. World & Nation Despite emphatic warnings from officials to stay home for Thanksgiving, millions of Americans are crowding the nation’s airports ahead of the holiday. Nov. 24, 2020 In a boost to holiday travel, the 14-day quarantine requirement for travelers arriving in England from most destinations will be reduced to as little as five days if they test negative for COVID-19. Under the new rules, passengers from places not on the government’s travel corridor list can reduce the 14-day quarantine period by paying for a test from a private firm on or after Day 5 of their arrival at a potential cost of around $133. Results normally take a day or two. “Our new testing strategy will allow us to travel more freely, see loved ones and drive international business,” Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said. “By giving people the choice to test on Day 5, we are also supporting the travel industry as it continues to rebuild out of the pandemic.” The change, which takes effect Dec. 15, has been long-awaited by the travel industry, one of the worst-hit sectors during the pandemic. The industry hopes it will spur British families to go on holiday over the Christmas break, especially if children won’t have to miss school upon their return. The change only applies in England. Travelers arriving in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales must continue to self-isolate for 14 days. The Christmas plan will allow people to travel anywhere in the U.K. to meet with loved ones in private homes, outdoors or in places of worship — though not in pubs and restaurants. The decision to relax the rule comes amid evidence that new coronavirus infections have fallen since restrictions were tightened in the past few weeks, including a national lockdown in England that is due to end on Dec. 2. It will be replaced with regional measures that involve three tiers of restrictions based on the scale of the local outbreak. California Here’s a summary of tips on how to have a safer Thanksgiving during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nov. 24, 2020 Though daily numbers can fluctuate widely, the U.K. recorded another 11,299 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the lowest level since early October. The hope is that fewer infections will soon lead to a reduction in hospitalizations and the number of people dying from the coronavirus. For now, though, virus-related deaths remain high and another 608 were reported on Tuesday. However, Tuesday’s figures have invariably been higher during the pandemic because of weekend reporting lag effects. The change in England’s travel rules brings them more in line with those of other European countries, including Germany. Still, with a maze of travel and quarantine restrictions around the world, few industry experts expect a rapid rush for the skies before vaccinations become widely available. “We still have a complex jigsaw puzzle of restrictions around the world that need tourists to have a high IQ to understand,” said Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy the PC Agency. Many popular holiday destinations, such as the United States or Canada, remain blocked off for English travelers, and trips to most of Europe require quarantining, except for isolated spots like Spain’s Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa. Tim Alderslade, chief executive of the industry association Airlines U.K., said the announcement on a shorter quarantine period provided “light at the end of the tunnel” for the aviation industry and people wanting to go on holiday.

The first COVID-19 vaccines won't end the U.S. crisis right away

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-24/keep-the-mask-a-vaccine-wont-end-the-us-crisis-right-away

Don’t even think of putting your mask away anytime soon. Despite the expected arrival of the first COVID-19 vaccines in just a few weeks, it could take several months — probably well into 2021 — before things get back to something close to normal in the U.S. and Americans can once again go to the movies, cheer at an NBA game or give Grandma a hug. The first, limited shipments of the vaccine would mark just the beginning of what could be a long and messy road toward the end of the pandemic that has upended life and killed more than a quarter-million people in the U.S. In the meantime, Americans are being warned not to let their guard down. “If you’re fighting a battle and the cavalry is on the way, you don’t stop shooting; you keep going until the cavalry gets here, and then you might even want to continue fighting,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said last week. Science & Medicine There are still many unknowns when it comes to the pandemic, but the early signs of success for two experimental COVID-19 vaccines make a few things clear. Nov. 18, 2020 This week, AstraZeneca became the third vaccine maker to say early data indicates its shots are highly effective. Pfizer last week asked the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization to begin distributing its vaccine, and Moderna is expected to do the same any day. Federal officials say the first doses will ship within a day of authorization. But most people will probably have to wait months for shots to become widely available. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines also both require two doses, meaning people will have to go back for a second shot after three and four weeks, respectively, to get the full protection. Moncef Slaoui, head of the U.S. vaccine development effort, said on CNN on Sunday that early data on the Pfizer and Moderna shots suggest about 70% of the population would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity — a milestone he said is likely to be reached in May. But along the way, experts say the logistical challenges of the biggest vaccination campaign in U.S. history and public fear and misinformation could hinder the effort and kick the end of the pandemic further down the road. “It’s going to be a slow process and it’s going to be a process with ups and downs, like we’ve seen already,” said Dr. Bill Moss, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University. Politics California and other states are racing to finalize plans for who will get the first doses of COVID-19 vaccines and how they will be delivered. Nov. 19, 2020 Once federal officials give a vaccine the go-ahead, doses that are already being stockpiled will be deployed with the goal of “putting needles in people’s arms” within 24 to 48 hours, said Paul Mango, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services official involved in the Operation Warp Speed effort to develop COVID-19 vaccines. Those first shipments are expected to be limited and will be directed to high-risk groups at designated locations, such as frontline healthcare workers at hospitals. Federal and state officials are still figuring out exactly how to prioritize those most at risk, including the elderly, prison inmates and homeless people. By the end of January, HHS officials say, all senior citizens should be able to get shots, assuming a vaccine becomes available by the end of 2020. For everyone else, they expect widespread availability of vaccines would start a couple of months later. To make shots easily accessible, state and federal officials are enlisting a vast network of providers, such as pharmacies and doctor’s offices. But some worry long lines won’t be the problem. “One of the things that may be a factor that hasn’t been discussed that much is: How many will be willing to be vaccinated?” said Christine Finley, director of Vermont’s immunization program. She noted that the accelerated development of the vaccine and the politics around it have fueled worries about safety. Science & Medicine Top executives of nine drugmakers likely to produce the first coronavirus vaccines signed a pledge to boost public confidence in approved vaccines. Sept. 8, 2020 Even if the first vaccines prove as effective as suggested by early data, they won’t have much impact if enough people don’t get them. Vaccines aren’t always effective in everyone: Over the past decade, for example, seasonal flu vaccines have been effective in from 20% to 60% of people who get them. AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna say early trial data suggests their vaccine candidates are about 90% or more effective. But those rates could change by the time the studies end. Also, the definition of “effective” can vary. Rather than prevent infection entirely, the first COVID-19 vaccines might only prevent illness. Vaccinated people might still be able to contract and transmit the virus, another reason experts say masks will remain crucial for some time. Another important aspect of vaccines: They can take awhile to work. The first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine might bring about a degree of protection within a couple of weeks, meaning people who get infected might not get as sick as they otherwise would. But full protection could take up to two weeks after the second shot — or about six weeks after the first shot, said Deborah Fuller, a vaccine expert at the University of Washington. People who don’t understand that lag could mistakenly think the vaccine made them sick if they happen to come down with COVID-19 soon after a shot. People might also blame the vaccine for unrelated health problems and amplify those fears online. “All you need is a few people getting on social media,” Moss said. California Distributing COVID-19 vaccine will be biggest health operation in L.A. history. Can the bureaucracy pull it off? Nov. 20, 2020 There’s also the possibility of real side effects. COVID-19 vaccine trials have to include at least 30,000 people, but the chances of a rare side effect turning up are more likely as growing numbers of people are vaccinated. Even if a link between the vaccine and a possible side effect seems likely, distribution of the shots might not be halted if the risk is deemed small and is outweighed by the benefits, said Dr. Wilbur Chen, a vaccine expert at the University of Maryland. But Chen said public health officials will need to clearly explain the relative risks to avoid public panic. Depending on whether the virus mutates in coming years and how long the vaccine’s protection lasts, booster shots later on may also be necessary, said Dr. Edward Belongia, a vaccine researcher with the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute in Wisconsin. Belongia and many others say the coronavirus won’t ever be stamped out and will become one of the many seasonal viruses that sicken people. How quickly will vaccines help reduce the threat of the virus to that level? “At this point, we just need to wait and see,” Belongia said.

Michigan certifies Biden win despite Trump's GOP overtures

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-23/michigan-certifies-biden-win-despite-trumps-gop-overtures

Michigan election officials on Monday certified Democrat Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in the state despite President Trump’s brazen attempts to subvert the results of the election. The Board of State Canvassers, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, confirmed the results on a 3-0 vote, with one abstention. Allies of Trump and losing GOP Senate candidate John James had urged the panel to delay voting for two weeks to audit votes in heavily Democratic Wayne County, home to Detroit. The move is another setback in Trump’s efforts to use unconventional means to undermine the results of the Nov. 3 election and comes even after he made direct overtures to Republican officials in the state by inviting them to the White House last week. Politics With Georgia’s GOP feuding since Joe Biden won there, a question looms: Can it unite to help two senators win runoffs that will decide which party runs the Senate? Nov. 23, 2020 Under Michigan law, Biden claims all 16 electoral votes. Biden won by 2.8 percentage points — a larger margin than in other states where Trump is contesting the results like Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Some Trump allies had expressed hope that state lawmakers could intervene in selecting Republican electors in states that do not certify. That longshot bid is no longer possible in Michigan. Trump’s efforts to stave off the inevitable — formal recognition of his defeat — faced increasingly stiff resistance from the courts and fellow Republicans with just three weeks to go until the Electoral College meets to certify Biden’s victory. Time and again, Trump’s challenges and baseless allegations of widespread conspiracy and fraud have been met with rejection as states move forward with confirming their results. Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers certified the results despite calls by Trump and allies to the GOP members to block the vote to allow for an audit of ballots in heavily Democratic Wayne County, home to Detroit, where Trump has claimed without evidence that he was the victim of fraud. “The board’s duty today is very clear,” said Aaron Van Langevelde, the Republican vice chair. “We have a duty to certify this election based on these returns. That is very clear. We are limited to these returns. I’m not going to argue that we’re not.” Mary Ellen Gurewitz, an attorney for the state Democratic Party, told the canvassers that attacks on the election results “are part of a racist campaign, directed by soon-to-be former President Trump, to disparage the cities in this country with large Black populations, including Detroit, Philadelphia and Milwaukee.” “It sometimes feels like officials are attempting to tear up my ballot right in front of me by stalling and recounting until they find a way to change the results,” said Wendy Gronbeck, a resident of Douglas. “I’ve been a voter for over 50 years, and I’ve never had to think about whether canvassers will certify an election.” Biden crushed the president by more than 330,000 votes in Wayne County, where two local GOP canvassers who certified the results unsuccessfully tried to reverse course last week after being called by Trump. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, has said an audit must wait until after statewide certification because only then would officials have legal access to documentation needed to conduct such a review. Michigan’s elections bureau has recommended that the Nov. 3 results be certified. Norm Eisen, a constitutional law expert and former counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, said there was no legal basis to do anything other than certify the election. “That is the clear mandate of state law,” he said. Eisen dismissed various claims for why a delay might be necessary, including the need for an audit or time to investigate so-called “out of balance” precincts. “The reasons that they have advanced for doing anything other than (certify) is totally spurious. They carry no legal or factual weight whatsoever under the law,” Eisen added. Trump has tried to defy the results of the election through the courts, but having found no luck there, moved on to personally trying to influence local lawmakers to convince them to ignore the popular vote and appoint Republican electors, a strategy that would send Americans into the streets in protest, election law experts have said. Some Trump allies have expressed hope that state lawmakers could intervene in selecting Republican electors in states that do not certify, as the president and his attorneys have pushed baseless allegations of fraud that have been repeatedly rejected in courtrooms across the country. Trump met with top Michigan GOP legislators at the White House on Friday and tweeted over the weekend: “We will show massive and unprecedented fraud!” Had the board delayed a vote or opposed certification, a lawsuit was expected. Legal experts have said the canvassers’ role is limited and courts would order them to confirm the results. Under state law, it has the narrow responsibilities of reviewing vote numbers from Michigan’s 83 counties and certifying them. It does not have the power to audit returns or investigate complaints of irregularities. In Pennsylvania, a conservative Republican judge shot down the Trump campaign’s biggest legal effort in Pennsylvania with a scathing ruling that questioned why he was supposed to disenfranchise 7 million voters with no evidence to back their claims and an inept legal argument at best. But the lawyers still hope to block the state’s certification, quickly appealing to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, which ordered lawyers to file a brief Monday but did not agree to hear oral arguments. The campaign, in its filings, asked for urgent consideration so they could challenge the state election results before they are certified next month. If not, they will seek to decertify them, the filings said. And they insisted that they did not want to invalidate all of the 6.8 million ballots cast in the state — as Brann concluded based on their arguments in court last week. Instead, they said, they are taking aim only at seven Democratic-leaning counties where they take issue with how mail-in ballots were handled. “Appellants seek to exclude the defective mail ballots which overwhelming favored Biden, which may turn the result of the election,” they said in a filing Monday said. Biden won Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes. The other litigation has failed to change a single vote. Pennsylvania county election boards were voting on Monday, the state deadline, about whether to certify election results to the Department of State. The boards in two populous counties split along party lines, with majority Democrats in both places voting to certify. After all counties have sent certified results to Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, she must then tabulate, compute and canvass votes for all races. The law requires her to perform that task quickly but does not set a specific deadline. In Wisconsin, a recount in the state’s two largest liberal counties moved into its fourth day at a slow pace, with election officials in Milwaukee County complaining that Trump observers were hanging up the process with frequent challenges. Trump’s hope of reversing Biden’s victory there depends on disqualifying thousands of absentee ballots — including the in-person absentee ballot cast by one of Trump’s own campaign attorneys in Dane County.

GM flips to California's side in pollution fight against Trump

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-23/gm-flips-to-californias-side-in-pollution-fight-with-trump

General Motors Co. is switching sides in the legal fight against California’s right to set its own clean-air standards, abandoning the Trump administration as the president’s term nears its close. Chief Executive Mary Barra said in a letter Monday to environmental groups that GM will no longer support the Trump administration in its defense against a lawsuit over its efforts against California’s standards. And GM is urging other automakers to do the same. The move is a sign that GM and other automakers are anticipating big changes when President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January. Already at least one other large automaker, Toyota, said it may join GM in switching to California’s side. In her letter, Barra wrote that the company agrees with Biden’s plan to expand use of electric vehicles. Last week GM said it is testing a new battery chemistry that will bring down electric vehicle costs to those of gas-powered vehicles within five years. Barra sent the letter after a Monday morning conversation with Mary Nichols, head of California’s Air Resources Board, the company said. The board is the state’s air pollution regulator. “We believe the ambitious electrification goals of the President-elect, California, and General Motors are aligned, to address climate change by drastically reducing automobile emissions,” the letter said. Nichols called GM’s announcement good news. “I was pleased to be in communication with Mary Barra again,” she said. “It’s been a while since we had talked.” The news, coupled with GM announcing it was recalling 7 million vehicles and avoiding a drawn-out legal fight over the issue, helped to push the automaker’s shares up 4% Monday to $44.77. Earlier in the day, the stock hit $45.16, its highest level in more than two years. GM’s stock has more than doubled in value since April. Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups Barra wrote to, said GM had been wrong in trying to stop California from protecting its people from auto pollution. “Now the other automakers must follow GM and withdraw support for Trump’s attack on clean cars,” he said in an email. The White House did not respond to a request for comment, and the Environmental Protection Agency would say only that it is interesting to see the changing positions of U.S. companies. In a statement, Biden said GM’s decision is encouraging for the economy, the planet and the success of American auto workers. “GM’s decision reinforces how shortsighted the Trump administration’s efforts to erode American ingenuity and America’s defenses against the climate threat truly are,” the statement said, adding that the ripple effects will help the U.S. innovate and create good-paying union jobs. Last year General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota and 10 smaller automakers sided with the Trump administration in a lawsuit over whether California has the right to set its own standards for greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy. The companies said they would intervene in a lawsuit filed by the Environmental Defense Fund against the Trump administration, which has rolled back national pollution and gas mileage standards enacted while Barack Obama was president. The group called itself the Coalition for Sustainable Automotive Regulation and also included Nissan, Hyundai, Kia, Subaru, Isuzu, Suzuki, Maserati, McLaren, Aston-Martin and Ferrari. The coalition said automakers were faced with multiple overlapping and inconsistent standards, which it said would drive up costs for consumers. In a statement, Toyota said it has supported year-over-year increases in fuel economy standards, and it joined the coalition because most other automakers agreed there should be a single U.S. standard. But the company conceded that Biden soon will take a different position. “Given the changing circumstances, we are assessing the situation, but remain committed to our goal of a consistent, unitary set of fuel economy standards applicable in all 50 states,” Toyota said. The initial move put the coalition automakers at odds with five other companies — BMW, Ford, Volkswagen, Volvo and Honda — that backed California and endorsed stricter emissions and fuel economy standards than proposed by the Trump administration. About a dozen other states follow California’s standards. In September 2019, Trump announced his administration would seek to revoke California’s congressionally granted authority to set standards that are stricter than those issued by federal regulators. The move came after Ford, BMW, Honda, Volkswagen and later Volvo signed a deal with California, which had been at odds with the Trump administration for months. Many automakers have said in the past that they support increasing the standards, but not as much as those affirmed in the waning days of the Obama administration in 2016. Under the Obama requirements, the fleet of new vehicles would have to average 30 mpg in real-world driving by 2021, rising to 36 mpg in 2025. Those increases would be about 5% per year. The Trump administration’s plan increased fuel economy by 1.5% per year, backing off an earlier proposal to freeze the requirements at 2021 levels. Automakers say that because buyers are switching to larger trucks and SUVs, many companies would not be able to meet the stricter standards.

Customer has a $7.02 beer, leaves $3,000 tip for staff facing restaurant's closure

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-23/man-leaves-3k-tip-for-a-beer-as-restaurant-closes-for-virus

A customer left a $3,000 tip for a single beer as a Cleveland restaurant voluntarily closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The man walked into Nighttown restaurant Sunday, ordered the beer and asked for the check, which came to $7.02, owner Brendan Ring wrote on Facebook. Ring said the man wished him well and told him to share the tip with the four employees who were working the brunch service. As the man walked out, Ring wrote, he looked down at the tip and “realized he left a whopping $3,000.” Ring said he ran after the customer, who told him: “No mistake — we will see you when you reopen!” Ring said he would not post the customer’s name because he thought the man wouldn’t want that. The owner said he and his serving staff were “humbly grateful for this incredibly kind and grand gesture.”