AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST
Trump impeached after Capitol riot in historic second charge
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House for a historic second time Wednesday, charged with “incitement of insurrection” over the deadly mob siege of the Capitol in a swift and stunning collapse of his final days in office.
With the Capitol secured by armed National Guard troops inside and out, the House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump. The proceedings moved at lightning speed, with lawmakers voting just one week after violent pro-Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol after the president’s calls for them to “fight like hell” against the election results.
Ten Republicans fled Trump, joining Democrats who said he needed to be held accountable and warned ominously of a “clear and present danger” if Congress should leave him unchecked before Democrat Joe Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20.
Trump is the only U.S. president to be twice impeached. It was the most bipartisan presidential impeachment in modern times, more so than against Bill Clinton in 1998.
The Capitol insurrection stunned and angered lawmakers, who were sent scrambling for safety as the mob descended, and it revealed the fragility of the nation’s history of peaceful transfers of power. The riot also forced a reckoning among some Republicans, who have stood by Trump throughout his presidency and largely allowed him to spread false attacks against the integrity of the 2020 election.
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McConnell blocks quick Trump trial, unsure how he'll vote
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday blocked a quick Senate impeachment trial for President Donald Trump but did not rule out that he might eventually vote to convict the now twice-impeached president .
Minutes after the House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump, McConnell suggested in a statement that Trump's Senate trial will not start before Jan. 19, the chamber’s next scheduled business day. It's also the day before Democrat Joe Biden is inaugurated as president and about the time Democrats take over majority control of the Senate. The timetable essentially means McConnell is dropping the trial into Democrats' laps.
“There is simply no chance that a fair or serious trial" could end before Biden takes office, McConnell wrote. He said it will “best serve our nation" if the government spends the coming week “completely focused on facilitating a safe inauguration and an orderly transfer of power" to Biden.
In a letter to his GOP colleagues, McConnell acknowledged he's not determined whether Trump should be convicted of the House charge that he incited insurrection by exhorting supporters who violently attacked the Capitol last week, resulting in five deaths and a disruption of Congress.
“I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,” McConnell wrote.
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Calls to reopen classrooms grow as teachers get vaccinated
State leaders around the U.S. are increasingly pushing for schools to reopen this winter — pressuring them, even — as teachers begin to gain access to the vaccine against the raging pandemic.
Ohio's governor offered to give vaccinations to teachers at the start of February, provided their school districts agree to resume at least some in-person instruction by March 1. In Arizona, where teachers began receiving shots this week, the governor warned schools that he expects students back in the classroom despite objections from top education officials and the highest COVID-19 diagnosis rate in the nation over the past week.
“We will not be funding empty seats or allowing schools to remain in a perpetual state of closure,” said Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. “Children still need to learn, even in a pandemic.”
The U.S. recorded an all-time, one-day high of 4,327 deaths on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The nation’s overall death toll from COVID-19 has topped 380,000, closing in fast on the number of Americans killed in World War II. Confirmed infections have reached about 23 million.
President-elect Joe Biden initially pledged to reopen a majority of the nation’s schools in his first 100 days but recently revised the goal to most of the country’s K-8 schools. He has said teachers should be eligible for vaccinations as soon as possible after those who are at highest risk.
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Mix of extremists who stormed Capitol isn't retreating
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — As rioters laid siege to the U.S. Capitol, the seat of American democracy became a melting pot of extremist groups: militia members, white supremacists, paramilitary organizations, anti-maskers and fanatical supporters of President Donald Trump, standing shoulder to shoulder in rage.
Experts say it was the culmination of years of increasing radicalization and partisanship, combined with a growing fascination with paramilitary groups and a global pandemic. And they warn that the armed insurrection that left five people dead and shook the country could be just the beginning.
“We look at it like a conveyor belt of radicalization," said Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights. “Once they step on that conveyor belt, they’re inundated with propaganda that moves them along that path until they’re willing to take up arms.”
Photographs and video of the Capitol siege showed people wearing attire with symbols associated with the anti-government Three Percenters movement and the Oath Keepers, a loosely organized group of right-wing extremists.
Many of those who stormed the Capitol were wearing clothes or holding signs adorned with symbols of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which centers on the baseless belief that Trump is waging a secret campaign against the “deep state” and a cabal of sex-trafficking cannibals. One of the intruders was wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt, a reference to the Nazi death camp.
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US to block cotton from China region targeted in crackdown
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government announced Wednesday that it will halt imports of cotton and tomatoes from the Uighur region of China in its most sweeping action yet to pressure the Communist Party over its campaign against ethnic minorities.
Officials said Customs and Border Protection will use its authority to block products suspected of being produced with forced labor to keep out cotton, tomatoes and related products from the Xinjiang region of northwest China.
Xinjiang is a major global supplier of cotton, so the order could have significant effects on international commerce. The Trump administration has already blocked imports from individual companies linked to forced labor in the region, and the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Communist Party officials with prominent roles in the campaign.
The order will put economic pressure not just on China but major global retailers who unwittingly or otherwise import goods produced by people under conditions that are akin to modern-day slavery.
"Any global apparel brand that is not either out of Xinjiang already, or plotting a very swift exit, is courting legal and reputational disaster," said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a labor rights monitoring organization. "The days when any major apparel brand can safely profit from Xinjiang cotton are over.”
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VIRUS TODAY: Coronavirus deaths hit another daily high in US
Here’s what’s happening Wednesday with the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.:
THREE THINGS TO KNOW TODAY
— Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. hit another one-day high at over 4,300 with the country’s attention focused largely on the fallout from the deadly uprising at the Capitol. The nation’s overall death toll from COVID-19 has eclipsed 380,000, according to Johns Hopkins University, and is closing in fast on the number of Americans killed in World War II, or about 407,000. Confirmed infections have topped 22.8 million. Arizona and California have been among the hardest-hit states. The country is now in the most lethal phase of the outbreak yet, even as vaccines are being rolled out.
— State leaders around the U.S. are increasingly pushing for schools to reopen this winter — pressuring them, even — as teachers begin to gain access to vaccines against the raging pandemic. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine offered to give vaccinations to teachers at the start of February, provided their school systems agree to resume at least some in-person instruction by March 1. And Arizona’s governor warned schools that he expects students back in the classroom despite objections from top education officials and the highest COVID-19 diagnosis rate in the nation over the past week.
— An ongoing study suggests that older American adults are showing resilience and perseverance despite struggles with loneliness and isolation during the pandemic. That’s according to the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project, conducted by the social research organization NORC at the University of Chicago. It’s part of a longer-term study designed to track the physical and emotional well-being of a group of older Americans over time. Only 9% of older adults reported having “fair or poor overall mental health” during the pandemic. Nevertheless, the study found that general happiness has declined and an increasing number report occasional feelings of depression or isolation.
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Census halts efforts to comply with Trump citizenship order
The director of the U.S. Census Bureau on Wednesday indefinitely halted efforts to comply with President Donald Trump's order demanding data on who is in the country illegally after receiving blowback from civil rights groups and concerns raised by bureau statisticians about the accuracy of such figures.
Bureau workers laboring to comply with the presidential order were instructed to “'stand down' and discontinue their data reviews," Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham said in a memo.
Dillingham's memo came after the Office of Inspector General reported Tuesday that bureau workers were under significant pressure from two Trump political appointees, Nathaniel Cogley and Benjamin Overholt, to figure out who is in the U.S illegally using federal and state administrative records. Dillingham had set a Friday deadline for bureau statisticians to provide him a technical report on the effort, the inspector general's memo said.
After the release of the inspector general's memo, a coalition of civil rights groups called for Dillingham's resignation, saying he was undermining the statistical agency's standards for data quality to comply with Trump's order, which was “motivated by partisan objectives."
“We do not lightly come to the conclusion that he should resign,” leaders of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said in a statement. “Dillingham’s order to divert precious staff time away from producing the apportionment count and into producing data on citizens and noncitizens for political, partisan purposes is a betrayal of the mission of the Bureau."
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Flint families welcome water crisis charges, seek healing
FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Flint mother Ariana Hawk struggled to find words. Bittersweet came to mind, as did frustrated.
“I literally could have cried,” said Hawk, sitting in her car after learning former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and others in his administration were expected to be charged in a water crisis blamed with causing learning disabilities in scores of children and other medical problems among adults in the majority Black city about 60 miles (95 kilometers) northwest of Detroit.
Her son, Sincere Smith, was 2 years old when Hawk noticed something wasn't right with the family's tap water. Sometimes the water they drank and used for cooking and bathing was discolored. More concerning was when it gushed out brown.
It wasn’t just her home, but all across the former manufacturing hub that for decades had turned out some of the best cars and trucks produced by U.S. automakers.
Residents had been complaining about the discolored discharge as early as 2014 after the financially strapped city — while under state oversight — switched from water pumped from Detroit to the Flint River to save money.
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AP source: Harden headed to Nets in blockbuster 4-team deal
James Harden is heading to Brooklyn, joining old teammate Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to give the Nets a potent trio of the some of the NBA's highest scorers.
The Nets agreed to acquire the three-time scoring champion from the Houston Rockets on Wednesday in a move he has sought for weeks, said a person with knowledge of the situation.
Harden is the centerpiece of a four-team deal that also involves Indiana and Cleveland, according to the person who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the trade call with the NBA — which signs off on all deals — has not been completed.
Once the deal is completed, the Nets will be able to trot out a lineup of three players capable of scoring 25 or more points on any night in a collection of firepower to rival any Big Three in recent years.
It provides a needed boost amid a period of drama for both franchises, struck less than 24 hours after Harden seemed to deliver a farewell address of sorts following the Rockets’ loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night, and just before Irving was set to miss a fifth straight game during a personal absence from the Nets.
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Defiance of virus dining bans grows as restaurants flounder
BORING, Ore. (AP) — A line formed out the door during the lunch rush at the Carver Hangar, a family-owned restaurant and sports bar, and waitresses zipped in and out of the kitchen trying to keep up with orders as customers backed up in the lobby.
Indoor dining has been banned in much of Oregon for nearly two months, but the eatery 20 miles southeast of Portland was doing a booming business — and an illegal one. The restaurant's owners, Bryan and Liz Mitchell, fully reopened Jan. 1 in defiance of Democratic Gov. Kate Brown's COVID-19 indoor dining ban in their county despite the risk of heavy fines and surging coronavirus cases.
“We’re not going to back down because our employees still need to eat, they still need that income,” said Bryan Mitchell, as customers ate at tables spaced 6 feet apart. “The statement that we’re making is, ‘Every life is essential. You have the right to survive. Nobody should tell you what you can and cannot do to provide for your family.'”
Health officials in Oregon and other states with bans say they are necessary because people can’t wear masks when they eat, are in close proximity in smaller and often poorly ventilated spaces, and are prone to talk more loudly in a crowded dining room — all known contributors to viral spread. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists indoor dining as a “particularly high-risk” activity.
But even as coronavirus deaths soar, a growing number of restaurants in states across the country are reopening in defiance of strict COVID-19 rules that have shut them down for indoor dining for weeks, or even months. Restaurants can serve people outside or offer carry-out, but winter weather has crippled revenues from patio dining.