AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EST
Trump presses own grievances at rally for Georgia senators
VALDOSTA, Georgia (AP) — President Donald Trump pressed his own grievances over losing the presidential election at a rally Saturday in Georgia, spreading baseless allegations of misconduct in last month’s vote, even as he pushed supporters to cast ballots for a pair of Republican Senate candidates in the state's Jan. 5 runoff election that will decide the balance of power in Washington once President-elect Joe Biden takes office next month.
Trump rallied thousands of largely maskless supporters in Valdosta, not long after he was rebuffed by Georgia’s Republican governor in his astounding call for a special legislative session to give him the state’s electoral votes despite Biden winning the majority of the vote.
The latest futile attempt to subvert the presidential election results continued his unprecedented campaign to undermine confidence in the democratic process, but overshadowed his stated purpose — boosting Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Republicans need one victory to maintain their Senate majority. Democrats need a Georgia sweep to force a 50-50 Senate and position Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the tiebreaking majority vote. Party officials had hoped the president would dedicate his energy to imploring their supporters to vote in the Jan. 5 election, when Perdue and Loeffler try to hold off Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively.
Trump did echo Republican rhetoric that the races amounted to “the most important congressional runoff, probably in American history.” That is only true because he lost.
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The Latest: Trump urges backers to 'take revenge' by voting
VALDOSTA. Ga. (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times local):
8:55 p.m.
President Donald Trump urged supporters to head to the polls to take “revenge” for his loss in last month’s election.
Trump continued to rehash unsubstantiated allegations of fraud during his Saturday evening rally in Valdosta, Georgia, but also warned voters in would be a mistake not to vote in the Jan. 5 Senate runoff election in Georgia for two seats which will determine which party controls the election.
“Let them steal Georgia again, you’ll never be able to look yourself in the mirror,” Trump told rallygoers.
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Religious right eyes Biden warily after Trump's good favor
WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservative evangelical Christians have proven some of Donald Trump’s staunchest allies during his presidency. As his administration draws to a close, some of those backers are approaching President-elect Joe Biden with skepticism, but not antagonism.
Christian conservatives who stood by Trump through moments of crisis and success are hardly comfortable with his loss, and several have yet to fully acknowledge Biden as the winner of the election amid ongoing, unfounded fraud claims by the president. But they’re largely not echoing the harsh tone Trump directed toward his Democratic rival during the campaign, when he claimed baselessly that Biden is “against God.”
Texas-based megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, a stalwart evangelical booster of Trump, said Christians are obliged “to pray for what appears to be President-elect Biden. If he succeeds, all of America succeeds.”
Jeffress described himself as “deeply disappointed” by the apparent loss of a president he considers “a friend,” but added that he would respond to any outreach attempt by Biden, just as he did with Trump. The possibility that Biden could “be pulled away from extremist positions” held by other Democrats, Jeffress said, is “a plus not just for conservative Christians, but for all of America.”
It’s highly unlikely that Christian conservatives could develop a close relationship with Biden, whose support for abortion rights and stances on other issues stand in stark disagreement with the religious right. However, the lack of a combative tone from pro-Trump religious conservatives could create space for some common ground between the Catholic president-elect and other evangelicals who have not tied themselves as directly to Trump.
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Southern California, San Joaquin Valley under restrictions
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Faced with a dire shortage of hospital beds, health officials announced Saturday the vast region of Southern California and a large swath of the Central Valley will be placed under a sweeping new lockdown in an urgent attempt to slow the rapid rise of coronavirus cases.
The California Department of Public Health said the intensive care unit capacity in both regions' hospitals had fallen below a 15% threshold that triggers the new measures, which include strict closures for businesses and a ban on gathering with anyone outside of your own household. The new measures will take effect Sunday evening and remain in place for at least three weeks, meaning the lockdown will cover the Christmas holiday.
Much of the state is on the brink of the same restrictions. Some counties have opted to impose them even before the mandate kicks in, including five San Francisco Bay Area counties where the measures also take effect starting Sunday.
With a new lockdown looming, many rushed out to supermarkets Saturday and lined up outside salons to squeeze in a haircut before the orders kicked in.
San Francisco resident Michael Duranceau rushed to a market to load up on supplies.
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A bleak outlook for millions facing cutoff of US jobless aid
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Tina Morton recently faced a choice: Pay 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 in negotiations taking place on Capitol Hill, more than 9 million people will lose federal jobless aid that averages about $320 a week and that typically serves as their only source of income.
Green, 39, and her husband are among them. An end to their unemployment benefits would force them to keep missing rent payments on their home in Dyer, Indiana, 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.
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'Our kids are the sacrifices': Parents push schools to open
LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. (AP) — The activism of Jennifer Dale began when she watched her third grade daughter struggle with distance learning, kicking and screaming through her online classes.
The mother of three initially sent emails to her local school officials with videos of the disastrous school days for her middle daughter, Lizzie, who has Down syndrome. Over time, she connected with other parents and joined several protests calling for school buildings to reopen.
Now she helps organize events and has become a voice for what has become a statewide movement of parents calling for children to return to school in Oregon, one of only a handful of states that has required at least a partial closure of schools as long as local coronavirus infections remain above certain levels.
“This just isn’t plausible anymore. It’s not fair to the kids, who I am afraid aren’t getting an adequate education,” Dale said during an interview at her home in Lake Oswego as she juggled her work and helping her children who are distance learning. “Something needs to change. It is not working, and our kids are the sacrifices.”
In debates nationwide about opening schools, parents unhappy with distance learning are taking increasingly vocal roles in calling for more in-person instruction through grassroots organizing and legal challenges.
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Years-old murder shook town; new arrest causes aftershocks
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — As days turned into years, Brett Woolley came to accept that his father’s murderer would never be found — and that his family’s private tragedy had become a Wild West legend, the kind of thing folks shared when they were a few too many drinks deep into the night.
Nearly 40 years ago, Dan Woolley was shot in the parking lot of a small-town bar. The shooter crossed the street to the town’s other tavern, ordered a drink and declared, “I just killed a man.”
And then he disappeared, leaving no trace.
Until a sunny summer morning last year, when word came that the man who shot Dan Woolley was living in Texas under an assumed name.
Brett didn’t want to hear it. “I didn’t want him to be found. I was fine with it like it was,” he said that November, voice choked. “It’s like it just happened yesterday, all over again.”
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Lights go out, roads dicey as wintry storm batters Northeast
WARREN, Mass. (AP) — The first big wintry storm of the season began dropping what forecasters say could be more than a foot of wet, heavy snow Saturday on parts of the Northeast, making travel treacherous and cutting off power to thousands.
Morning rain gave over to snow in the afternoon in New England. Accidents littered the Massachusetts Turnpike, where speed limits were reduced to 40 mph (64 kph). Massachusetts and New Hampshire utilities quickly reported thousands of customers without power.
Forecasters warned the windy nor'easter could result in near-blizzard conditions and could dump a foot (30 centimeters) of snow on suburban Boston. In Canada, southern Quebec and New Brunswick also expected a wallop.
Authorities in Connecticut urged drivers to be careful.
“Troopers are responding to accidents all over the state,” state police tweeted. “We ask motorists, if they can stay home please do. And if you have to go out please drive slow and ditch all distractions.”
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ER visits, long waits climb for kids in mental health crisis
When children and teens are overwhelmed with anxiety, depression or thoughts of self-harm, they often wait days in emergency rooms because there aren’t enough psychiatric beds.
The problem has only grown worse during the pandemic, reports from parents and professionals suggest.
With schools closed, routines disrupted and parents anxious over lost income or uncertain futures, children are shouldering new burdens many are unequipped to bear.
And with surging numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, bed space is even scarcer.
By early fall, many Massachusetts ERs were seeing about four times more children and teens in psychiatric crisis weekly than usual, said Ralph Buonopane, a mental health program director at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Boston.
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David Lander, 'Squiggy' on 'Laverne & Shirley,' dies at 73
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actor David L. Lander, who played the character of Squiggy on the popular ABC comedy “Laverne & Shirley,” has died after a decades-long battle with multiple sclerosis, his wife said. He was 73.
Lander died Friday in Los Angeles, surrounded by his wife, daughter and son-in-law, Kathy Fields Lander said in an email Saturday to the Associated Press.
“It was very peaceful,” Lander said. “He had a tough battle with MS for 37 years and he persevered like no one I have ever seen, and it taught me a great deal about the important things of life.”
Lander had a longtime comedic partnership with Michael McKean, whom he met at Carnegie Mellon University. Together they created the characters of Lenny and Squiggy that they would play on the show, which ran from 1976 to 1983. Lenny and Squiggy — or Lenny Kosnowski and Andrew “Squiggy” Squiggman — were friends and upstairs neighbors of Laverne DeFazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams), bottle-cappers in 1950s Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
McKean tweeted a photo in tribute to Lander on Saturday of the two actors in the early days.