AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST
US virus deaths hit record levels with the holidays ahead
Deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to more than 2,200 a day on average, matching the frightening peak reached last April, and cases per day have eclipsed 200,000 on average for the first time on record, with the crisis all but certain to get worse because of the fallout from Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.
Virtually every state is reporting surges just as a vaccine appears days away from getting the go-ahead in the U.S.
“What we do now literally will be a matter of life and death for many of our citizens,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday as he extended restrictions on businesses and social gatherings, including a ban on indoor dining and drinking at restaurants and bars.
While the impending arrival of the vaccine is reason for hope, he said, “at the moment, we have to face reality, and the reality is that we are suffering a very dire situation with the pandemic.”
Elsewhere around the country, North Carolina's governor imposed a 10 p.m. curfew, and authorities in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley sent a mass cellphone text alert Tuesday telling millions about the rapid spread of the virus and urging them to abide by the state's stay-at-home orders.
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President-elect? GOP may wait for January to say Biden won
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans waiting for Republicans in Congress to acknowledge Joe Biden as the president-elect may have to keep waiting until January as GOP leaders stick with President Donald Trump’s litany of legal challenges and unproven claims of fraud.
Tuesday’s deadline for states to certify their elections — once viewed as a pivot point for Republicans to mark Biden's win — came and went without much comment. Next week’s Dec. 14 Electoral College deadline may produce just a few more congratulatory GOP calls to Biden.
Increasingly, GOP lawmakers say the Jan. 6 vote in Congress to accept the Electoral College outcome may be when the presidential winner becomes official. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has signaled Jan. 20 as the certain date when the country is “going to have the swearing-in of the next president.”
The result is a risky standoff like none other in U.S. history. The refusal to agree upon the facts of the election threatens to undermine voter confidence, chisel away at the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency and restack civic norms in still-unknowable ways.
Yet some GOP officials see the dragged-out process as their best shot at answering the fiery questions, calls and complaints of their constituents who voted for Trump and refuse to believe he legitimately lost the race to Biden.
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High court rejects GOP bid to halt Biden's Pennsylvania win
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Republicans' last-gasp bid to reverse Pennsylvania's certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the electoral battleground.
The court without comment refused to call into question the certification process in Pennsylvania. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf already has certified Biden's victory over President Donald Trump and the state's 20 electors are to meet on Dec. 14 to cast their votes for Biden.
In any case, Biden won 306 electoral votes, so even if Pennsylvania’s results had been in doubt, he still would have more than the 270 electoral votes needed to become president.
The court's decision not to intervene came in a lawsuit led by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of northeastern Pennsylvania and GOP congressional candidate and Trump favorite Sean Parnell, who lost to Pittsburgh-area U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, a Democrat.
“Even Trump appointees & Republicans saw this for what it was: a charade,” Lamb said on Twitter.
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Iraqis slowly rebuild Mosul, with little aid from government
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Anan Yasoun rebuilt her home with yellow cement slabs amid the rubble of Mosul, a brightly colored manifestation of resilience in a city that for many remains synonymous with the Islamic State group’s reign of terror.
In the three years since Iraqi forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, liberated Mosul from the militants, Yasoun painstakingly saved money that her husband earned from carting vegetables in the city. They had just enough to restore the walls of their destroyed home; money for the floors was a gift from her dying father, the roof a loan that is still outstanding.
Yasoun didn’t even mind the bright yellow exterior — paint donated by a relative. “I just wanted a house,” said the 40-year-old mother of two.
The mounds of debris around her bear witness to the violence Iraq's second-largest city has endured. From Mosul, IS had proclaimed its caliphate in 2014. Three years later, Iraqi forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition liberated the city in a grueling battle that killed thousands and left Mosul in ruins.
Such resilience is apparent elsewhere in the city, at a time when Baghdad’s cash-strapped government fails to fund reconstruction efforts and IS is becoming more active across the disputed territories of northern Iraq.
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Ethiopia rejects independent probes into Tigray conflict
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia’s government is rejecting calls for independent investigations into the deadly conflict in its Tigray region, saying it “doesn’t need a baby-sitter.”
The declaration comes amid international calls for more transparency into the month-long fighting between Ethiopian forces and those of the fugitive Tigray regional government that is thought to have killed thousands, including civilians. At least one large-scale massacre has been documented by human rights groups, and others are feared.
Senior government official Redwan Hussein told reporters on Tuesday evening that Ethiopia will invite others for assistance only if it feels that “it failed to investigate.” To assume the government can’t carry out such probes “is belittling the government,” he said.
Frustration is growing as the northern Tigray region remains largely cut off from the outside world, with food and medicines desperately needed by the population of 6 million — some 1 million of them now thought to be displaced.
The lack of transparency, as most communications and transport links remain severed, has complicated efforts to verify the warring side’s claims.
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UAE says Chinese vaccine 86% effective, offers few details
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates said Wednesday a Chinese coronavirus vaccine tested in the federation of sheikhdoms is 86% effective, in a statement that provided few details but marked the first public release of information on the efficacy of the shot.
The announcement brought yet another shot into the worldwide race for a vaccine to end the pandemic, a scientific effort that has seen China and Russia compete with Western firms for an effective inoculation. While questions remain about the Sinopharm shot, already at least one country outside China plans to roll it out in a mass-vaccination campaign.
The UAE, home to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, conducted a trial beginning in September of the vaccine by Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm involving 31,000 volunteers from 125 nations. Volunteers between 18 and 60 years old received two doses of the vaccine over 28 days.
The UAE's Health and Prevention Ministry announced the results via a statement on the state-run WAM news agency, saying they “have reviewed Sinopharm CNBG’s interim analysis of the Phase III trials.”
“The analysis shows no serious safety concerns,” the statement said, without detailing whether any participant suffered side effects.
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UK, EU head for supper showdown over Brexit trade deal
BRUSSELS (AP) — Leaders of Britain and the European Union will meet Wednesday for a dinner that could pave the way to a post-Brexit trade deal — or tip the two sides toward a chaotic economic rupture at the end of the month.
Early-morning comments from both sides insisting that it was for the other to compromise only highlighted the difficult task ahead for U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Within just a few hours they would need to unstick negotiations that are deadlocked on key aspects of the future relationship.
British officials said they hoped political pressure from the top could break the logjam, but room was limited.
“Unless we see some movement on the EU side, then it will be very difficult,” U.K. Cabinet minister Michael Gove told Times Radio.
The bloc insists the U.K. needs to move to secure agreement.
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Legal panel: Free Minneapolis man jailed for life as teen
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A national panel of legal experts recommended the immediate release of a Black man sentenced to life in prison as a teenager nearly two decades ago.
The panel also said Minneapolis police appear to have suffered from “tunnel vision” while investigating the case of Myon Burrell, who was convicted of killing a little girl hit by a stray bullet in 2002. In addition, the panel said, among the other serious flaws in the high-profile case, police ignored witnesses and evidence that might have helped eliminate Burrell as a suspect.
The panel, which was created to examine Burrell's conviction and sentence, released it's report Tuesday. Many of its findings mirrored those uncovered by an Associated Press and APM Reports investigation earlier this year. They included unreliable testimony from the sole eyewitness; a heavy reliance on jailhouse informants who received “extraordinarily generous” sentence reductions in exchange for their testimonies; and a failure to retrieve surveillance video from a corner store — footage that Burrell, now 34, has always maintained would have cleared him.
The eight-member panel was unable to address Burrell’s guilt or innocence, saying its work was hampered by Hennepin County Prosecutor Mike Freeman’s failure to provide all of the evidence the panel requested. It recommended that the case be handed over to the state’s new conviction review unit for further investigation, noting that the missing police and prosecution files, witness interviews, tape recordings and details about deals cut with jailhouse informants “may yield new evidence of actual innocence or due process issues.”
In the meantime, the panel members said they supported Burrell’s release from prison, noting his age at the time of the crime, that he had no prior record and that he behaved well behind bars. They pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years has argued against overly harsh sentences for juveniles, saying their brains and decision-making skills are not fully developed.
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Minneapolis eyes deep police cuts after Floyd's death
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis City Council members who tried unsuccessfully to dismantle the police department in response to George Floyd's death are voting Wednesday on whether to shrink it, a move that could imperil the entire city budget because the mayor is threatening to use his veto to protect public safety amid soaring crime rates.
The plan, which supporters call “Safety for All,” is the latest version of the “defund the police” movement that Minneapolis and other cities have considered since Floyd’s May 25 death ignited mass demonstrations against police brutality and a nationwide reckoning with racism.
Eleven of the 13 council members have already cast committee votes in favor of the largest parts of the plan, signaling that passage is likely. It would cut nearly $8 million from Mayor Jacob Frey’s $179 million policing budget and redirect it to mental health teams, violence prevention programs and other initiatives.
“I am actively considering a veto due to the massive, permanent cut to officer capacity," Frey said in a statement Monday night. Reducing the authorized size of the force by 138 officers before enacting alternatives is ”irresponsible,” he said.
Cities around the U.S., including Los Angeles, New York City and Portland, Oregon, are shifting funds from police departments to social services programs in an effort to provide new solutions for problems traditionally handled by police. Such cuts have led some departments to lay off officers, cancel recruiting classes or retreat from hiring goals.
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Soccer players lay down 'marker' in fight against racism
Players have taken a knee, unfurled slogans and demanded tougher action only to find soccer — their working environment — remains infected with racism.
The tipping point might just have come, with elite players in Paris taking the extraordinary step of refusing to continue playing.
At the end of a year of striking gestures against racial injustice and discrimination, the Champions League produced one of soccer's most powerful shows of solidarity against racism on Tuesday when players from Paris Saint-Germain and Istanbul Basaksehir left the field and didn't return.
“The walk off by both Basaksehir and PSG together lays down a marker in Europe," Piara Powar, executive director of the anti-discrimination Fare network, told The Associated Press. "Many players are fed up with half measures to tackle racism and are more prepared than ever to exercise their right to stop a match.”
The flashpoint came 14 minutes into the game when the fourth official — Sebastian Coltescu of Romania — was accused of using a racial term to identify Basaksehir assistant coach Pierre Webo before sending him off for his conduct on the sidelines. Webo is Black.