Five counties to pre-emptively adopt statewide order as hospitals fill amid coronavirus surgeMillions of people in the San Francisco Bay Area will go under a new stay-at-home order beginning this weekend as coronavirus cases surge and hospitals fill up, health officials announced on Friday.
Decision means the Trump administration must also return the period of protections for young immigrants to two yearsThe Trump administration must accept new applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as Daca, which protects some young immigrants from deportation, a federal judge ruled on Friday.The ruling by Judge Nicholas Garaufis means that the administration must reopen the program to first-time applicants and return the period of protections to two years. Continue reading...
Nearly all of 700 troops will leave over next few months follow president’s latest order with short noticeThe US will pull out nearly all its estimated 700 troops in Somalia over the next few months, the latest in a series of short-notice withdrawals ordered by Donald Trump in his last few weeks in power.A Pentagon statement on Friday said that some of the troops would be repositioned in neighbouring countries while others – it did not say how many – would leave the region altogether. Continue reading...
Congresswoman says price was appropriate because garment was made by unionised workers in America – unlike ‘Trump’s merch’Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a swift response for conservatives criticizing her for selling a “Tax the Rich” sweatshirt for $58. The price was right, the leftwing New York Democrat said, because the campaign merchandise was made by unionised workers in the US rather than in China, unlike political wear sold by, for example, Donald Trump.Related: When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious' Continue reading...
Firefighters still battling a number of blazes and forecasters warn low humidity and tinder-dry brush mean red-flag warnings remainPowerful winds that pushed wildfires through southern California, burning several homes and injuring two firefighters, began easing but forecasters warned that the fire danger remained on Friday. Continue reading...
A group of young men posted a video of themselves replacing the monolith, which was similar to one discovered in Utah, with a crossA group of young men claiming to be Christians have posted a video of themselves tearing down a mysterious monolith that had appeared atop a California mountain and replacing it with a cross.The monolith had been built near the town of Atascadero and sparked huge interest after the appearance of a similar silvery metal-faced monolith that had been discovered in the deserts of Utah. Continue reading...
Janet Yellen and fellow leaders have called for more government intervention and a stronger safety netJoe Biden’s incoming economic team is filled with firsts. The lineup that the incoming president introduced this week will, if approved, place women and people of color at the controls of the US economy during one of the darkest periods in recent history.While the team is historic, it also faces a historic challenge. Unemployment has fallen dramatically since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. It fell to 6.7% in November. But it remains 3.2 percentage points above its level before Covid-19 struck, jobs growth is slowing sharply, long-term unemployment is growing and people of color are still suffering hardship at far higher levels than white Americans. Continue reading...
As Congress continues to argue over the size of a new stimulus package, unemployment fell to 6.7%The recovery in the US jobs market collapsed in November as cases of Covid-19 hit new records, government figures revealed on Friday.The US added just 245,000 new jobs in November, less than the 638,000 jobs added in October, the 672,000 jobs added in September and the 1.4m jobs added in August. The unemployment rate fell to 6.7%. Continue reading...
The NBC analyst has apologized for sexist remarks he made during a broadcast. The incident showed why we need more women in the commentary boothCris Collinsworth spent time with some women this week. These women, it seems, asked some decent questions about football. They even sounded smart, maybe. And I guess it was all too much for Collinsworth. He was overcome. He had to share this mind-bending experience on national television.“Everybody’s a fan,” the NBC commentator said during Wednesday afternoon’s Steelers-Ravens broadcast. “In particular the ladies that I met. They have really specific questions about the game. I’m like wow, just blown away.” Continue reading...
Governor Ron DeSantis and his administration ‘suppressed facts’ and ‘dispensed dangerous misinformation’, according to paperFlorida this week became the third US state to record a million coronavirus cases and yet the public there has been misled by state leadership about the extent and dangers of the pandemic, especially in the run-up to the presidential election, an investigation has concluded.Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration has been engaged in a pattern of spin and concealment about Covid-19 amid the gravest health threat the state has ever faced, according to a South Florida Sun Sentinel investigation. Continue reading...
Republicans like Gabriel Sterling – who are horrified by the torrent of death threats facing electoral workers – are voicing their outrage very late in the dayThe first time I watched Georgia voting systems implementation manager Gabriel Sterling’s furious tirade about the threats against him and his coworkers, I was impressed. Here was a Republican, a self-described conservative, telling off the president and all the people making those threats. “Death threats. Physical threats. Intimidation. They have lost the moral high ground. I don’t have all the words for this because I am angry.” He was clearly furious. He talked about a young contract worker: “There’s a noose out there with his name on it. This kid just took a job and it’s just wrong. I just can’t begin to explain the level of anger I have right now … Mr President, it looks like you probably lost the state of Georgia. Stop inspiring people to commit acts of violence.”It didn’t take long for me to sour on his indignation. They never had the moral high ground. The death threats and intimidation against him and his co-workers are wrong. However, they’re not the first people to get them but in some sense the last, and if you care about people the president has attacked verbally and urged violence against, you could have started caring during the 2016 campaign. Nothing suggests Mr Sterling did, since he belongs to a party that has supported Trump and, more broadly, campaigns of hate and discrimination for the last 40 years and more. In recent years, Trump has urged police to treat arrestees more roughly, audiences to harass and even rough up journalists and dissidents in his crowds, and is well-known for the 26 credible accounts of sexual abuse and violence with which women have charged him. He’s the guy who pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 2017 for his conviction for disobeying a judge’s order to stop racial profiling. Continue reading...
by Alexander Kirshner and Claudio López-Guerra on (#5B7JN)
This is the moment to send a clear message that democracy need not supply its enemies with the means to destroy itDemocracies do not sprout spontaneously, like red poppies in a field. They are established by brave democrats: people who struggle, sometimes paying the ultimate price, against the forces of authoritarianism. This is how democracies survive, too. There is no such thing as the inevitability of democratic rule once it is in place. It has to be defended.Related: Donald Trump believes in clemency and mercy. But only for his friends and family | Jill Filipovic Continue reading...
By the end of November, more than 25 members of Congress and at least 150 workers had been infected amid lack of precautionsFor months Capitol Hill has struggled with how to contain the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.But even as the rest of the world slowly got a better handle on the spread of the virus, infections among US lawmakers in Washington DC have continued to rise and there hasn’t been a singular medical authority enforcing a blanket set of rules for all members of Congress and their staffers. Continue reading...
President to host rally for Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue – but false claims of fraud could discourage supporters in critical contestDonald Trump is set to host a Saturday rally in Georgia amid concerns he is discouraging Republicans there from turning out to vote in a critical runoff contest by attacking top GOP officials and falsely claiming fraud and voting-machine irregularities cost him the November election.Related: Donald Trump believes in clemency and mercy. But only for his friends and family | Jill Filipovic Continue reading...
President-elect Joe Biden joined three former presidents in agreeing to have the coronavirus vaccination live on television to dispel safety fears. Plus, Trump approves gas and oil drilling on immaculate wildlife refugeGood morning.President-elect Joe Biden will urge all Americans to wear masks for 100 days following his inauguration, in an attempt to lower the rate of coronavirus transmission amid a surge in cases and deaths in the US. Biden and the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, have also said they will have the coronavirus vaccine as soon as it is available. Continue reading...
The Broncos rookie hadn’t played QB since college when he was forced into the line-up on Sunday. He showed just how difficult the position is to masterIn Kendall Hinton, a practice squad receiver who due to a Covid outbreak was forced to start at quarterback for the Denver Broncos against the New Orleans Saints last Sunday, the NFL dropped any notion that it cares about the safety of players. An undercooked, under-skilled, unprepared player, a player who most members of the Broncos organization had never even met, was tossed to a professional defense, led by one of the league’s finest defensive minds, consequences be damned.And yet one of those consequences was an extra point for those engaging in an age-old debate. Which sport, if summoned from your sofa, would you have a reasonable ability to succeed at, even by fluke? Continue reading...
In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, US president-elect Joe Biden says that he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president. Biden and vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, also committed to receiving coronavirus vaccinations as soon as possible, when approved by US regulators.
The state’s new restrictions are tied to hospital capacity. What can you expect – and will it work?California has announced sweeping plans for a new, regional stay-at-home order that is likely to affect nearly all of the state within days.The order is pegged to hospital capacity – regions where where ICU capacity falls below 15% will come under the new restrictions. Continue reading...
by Joanna Walters in New York and Kari Paul in San Fr on (#5B72P)
President-elect and Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris pledge to receive Covid vaccines as soon as possibleJoe Biden intends to call for all Americans to wear masks for 100 days after he becomes president in an attempt to bring down infection rates, as the coronavirus crisis continues to rage out of control in the US.The president-elect and vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, have also committed to receiving coronavirus vaccinations as soon as possible when, as expected, the first vaccines are approved by US regulators. Continue reading...
President fails to address national crisis, instead remaining focused on false voter fraud claimsA day after 2,804 Americans died in a single day from the coronavirus pandemic – almost as many as in the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks – Donald Trump said nothing about the harrowing national crisis.The US president’s silence broke from the tradition of predecessors who have sought to play the role of “consoler-in-chief” to the American public after deadly bombings, school shootings and other tragedies. Continue reading...
Measure targets tobacco and e-cigarette smoking in effort to reduce secondhand smokeSan Francisco will ban tobacco smoking inside apartments in an effort to curb the negative health impacts of secondhand smoke. Cannabis smoking, however, will still be permitted.San Francisco’s board of supervisors passed the ban on tobacco and e-cigarette smoking in apartments 10-1 on Wednesday. The amendment exempting cannabis passed 8-3, with the board president, Norman Yee, the overall ordinance’s author, among the dissenting votes. “While there are great benefits to cannabis, there are still health risks in exposure to secondhand cannabis smoke,” he said. Continue reading...
‘Harvesting of data on Muslim app users worldwide is a serious threat to privacy and religious freedom,’ the ACLU saysThe American Civil Liberties Union is seeking the release of three years of records that could shed light on how the US government acquired cellphone location data collected through apps used by millions of Muslims around the world.The Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request, filed on Thursday by the ACLU and CUNY Law School’s Clear clinic, follows an investigation published last month in Motherboard that revealed tech companies, including the one connected to the Muslim Pro app, sold personal location data of its users to the US military and defense contractors. The Muslim Pro app has been downloaded by close to 100 million people and is used to aid Muslims in planning prayer, finding local halal food and fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. Data collected from a Muslim dating app, a Craigslist app, and an app used for tracking storms was also sold to US agencies. Continue reading...
Governor Gavin Newsom says the order will be the most restrictive since the beginning of the pandemic as intensive care units are strainedCalifornia has unveiled plans to issue regional stay-at-home orders for areas in the state where intensive care units are expected to fall below a capacity of 15%, with the vast majority of the state expected to meet that criteria within the next few days.Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, announced the new restrictions on Thursday as cases in the state reached the highest reported since the pandemic began. Continue reading...
Justices rule 4-3 that case must move through lower courts, in blow to president’s teamWisconsin’s supreme court has refused to hear Donald Trump’s lawsuit attempting to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the battleground state, sidestepping a decision on the merits of the claims and instead ruling that the case must first wind its way through lower courts.The defeat on a 4-3 ruling on Thursday was the latest in a string of losses for Trump’s post-election lawsuits. Judges in multiple battleground states have rejected his claims of fraud or irregularities. Dissenting conservative justices said the decision would forever “stain” the outcome of the election. Continue reading...
Across the US a Covid surge has swamped hospitals as the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said December, January and February would be 'rough times' for the country.Dr Robert Redfield said he believed the US was facing its 'most difficult time in the public health history of this nation', adding that about 90% of hospitals in the country were at stretched capacity
Tweaks by successive governments have failed to cut to the heart of the problem, the growth of online retailAmazing, isn’t it? All those supermarkets, it turns out, had been pondering a U-turn on business rates relief for simply ages. Morrisons says it had been on the case “for some time”. The board of Sainsbury’s had deliberated “since the announcement of a second national lockdown in England”, so more than a month ago. If only they’d given us a clue, instead of banging on about the extra costs involved in “feeding the nation” during a pandemic.Related: £1.8bn-plus in Covid rates relief to be handed back as B&M joins list Continue reading...
Twitter users compared Melissa Carone to an SNL character after she made bizarre allegations of fraud before the Michigan houseThe quixotic quest by Donald Trump’s legal team to overturn the results of the election have birthed an unlikely star this week: Michigan resident Melissa Carone.Carone, a contract worker for Dominion Voting Systems, appeared before a Michigan house panel on Wednesday and insisted, without providing evidence, that tens of thousands of votes had been counted twice. Continue reading...
Clemency is a noble quality, but in Donald Trump’s hands it risks being a self-serving abuse of law and due processA US president’s power to pardon and commute sentences for federal offences seems to explode America’s claims as a nation of laws and proper process. Donald Trump is no respecter of laws in any aspect of his life, so there is no surprise that he may now be gearing up to make extravagant use of the power before he is prised out of the White House in January.Two things should be remembered here. First, the pardon power does not extend to state laws, only federal ones. Second, other presidents have been here too. Barack Obama, who issued 212 pardons in eight years, granted 330 commutations on his very last day as president in 2017. At this stage of his own presidency, Mr Trump is a remarkably light pardoner and commuter. At the time of writing, he has issued a mere 28 pardons and 16 commutations, although all that could change soon. Continue reading...
A breakdown in EU talks would cause more chaos than Britain can stand. He should plan to compensate the industry insteadHold the fish. But has Boris Johnson the guts to do it? If one thing screams from the current, final trade talks between Britain and the European Union, it is that fishing cannot become a deal-breaker. It is an industry alive with romance, but it occupies just 0.02% of the British domestic output and employs just 12,000 people, fewer than benighted Debenhams.Related: Brexit: UK has lowered demands on fish catches, says EU Continue reading...
The Netflix film fails to recognize there are large parts of the US that have been abandoned by politicians, employers and educational institutionsHillbilly Elegy the book came out at a weird time. Released just a few months before Donald Trump would be elected president of the United States, it was already on the shelves and gaining a respectable audience when those surprised by the results scrambled to find something that would explain these “dangerous” white people they just remembered existed. It became a phenomenon.Hillbilly Elegy the movie is also coming out at a weird time. Released on Netflix this week on the heels of the – slim – defeat of Trump at the polls, politicians and thinktanks and cultural elites that disguise themselves as just simple working folk in tune with “the people” are trying to figure out what to do about his voters in regions like the midwest, the south, and the setting of the film, Appalachia. Mostly it’s a scramble among Democrats and Republicans to see who can get their votes and dollars without providing them any sort of significant material support. Continue reading...
A new mysterious metal monolith has appeared atop a mountain in California, just a week after a similar structure captured the imagination of the world when it was discovered in the deserts of Utah – before disappearing. Amid mounting international attention of the mystery, a similar structure was reportedly found in the mountains of Romania - before it disappeared as well
by Sam Levine and Alvin Chang in New York on (#5B5Z7)
Analysis: the 2020, conducted during a pandemic, led to a change in voting habits that could have ended in disaster, but didn’tWhen America began shutting down this spring because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it transformed the already high-stakes 2020 race into a precarious high-wire balancing act. Continue reading...
US recorded more than 3,000 Covid-19 deaths for the first time yesterday and is expected to pass 14m coronavirus cases today. Plus, why Obama doesn’t approve of calls to ‘defund the police’
Many expect the president will issue a flurry of pardons in the coming weeks, even as he lets others be executedGiven that Donald Trump treats the office of the presidency like a personal branding tool, and deals with adversity like a two-bit mafioso, this moment was perhaps predictable: the president is reportedly considering pre-emptively pardoning three of his children, his son-in-law, and associates including Rudy Giuliani. He has already pardoned or commuted the sentences of several of his friends and associates, which should raise some eyebrows – why do so many people who surround this president wind up charged with a crime, in jail, or bracing themselves for criminal charges? And why is the supposedly law-and-order “pro-life” Republican party shrugging as this president excuses the criminality of his kin and his cronies while he refuses to intervene to save anyone from execution – and in fact, is using what little time he has left in office to reinstate barbaric practices like death by firing squad?Related: Dear President Trump: election officials are facing death threats on your watch | Gabriel Sterling Continue reading...
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