WASHINGTON — It was a Saturday in the spring of 2017, and a ninth grade student in Pennsylvania was having a bad day. She had just learned that she had failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad and would remain on junior varsity.The student expressed her frustration on social media, sending a message on Snapchat to about 250 friends. The message included an image of the student and a friend with their middle fingers raised, along with text expressing a similar sentiment. Using a curse word four times, the student expressed her dissatisfaction with “school,” “softball,” “cheer” and “everything.”Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York TimesThough Snapchat messages are ephemeral by design, another student took a screenshot of this one and showed it to her mother, a coach. The school suspended the student from cheerleading for a year, saying the punishment was needed to “avoid chaos” and maintain a “teamlike environment.”The student sued the school district, winning a sweeping victory in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Philadelphia. The court said the First Amendment did not allow public schools to punish students for speech outside school grounds.Next month, at its first private conference after the holiday break, the Supreme Court will consider whether to hear the case, Mahanoy Area School District v. BL, No. 20-255. The 3rd Circuit’s ruling is in tension with decisions from several other courts, and such splits often invite Supreme Court review.In urging the justices to hear the case, the school district said administrators around the nation needed a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court on their power to discipline students for what they say away from school.”The question presented recurs constantly and has become even more urgent as COVID-19 has forced schools to operate online,” a brief for the school district said. “Only this court can resolve this threshold First Amendment question bedeviling the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools.”Justin Driver, a law professor at Yale and author of “The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court and the Battle for the American Mind,” agreed with the school district, to a point.”It is difficult to exaggerate the stakes of this constitutional question,” he said. But he added that schools had no business telling students what they could say when they were not in school.”In the modern era, a tremendous percentage of minors’ speech occurs off campus but online,” he said. “Judicial decisions that permit schools to regulate off-campus speech that criticizes public schools are antithetical to the First Amendment. Such decisions empower schools to reach into any student’s home and declare critical statements verboten, something that should deeply alarm all Americans.”The key precedent is from a different era. In 1969, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court allowed students to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War but said disruptive speech, at least on school grounds, could be punished.Making distinctions between what students say on campus and off was easier in 1969, before the rise of social media. These days, most courts have allowed public schools to discipline students for social media posts so long as they are linked to school activities and threaten to disrupt them.A divided three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit took a different approach, announcing that a categorical rule would seem to limit the ability of public schools to address many kinds of disturbing speech by students on social media, including racist threats and cyberbullying.In a concurring opinion, Judge Thomas L. Ambro wrote that he would have ruled for the student on narrower grounds. It would have been enough, he said, to say that her speech was protected by the First Amendment because it did not disrupt school activities. The majority was wrong, he said, to protect all off-campus speech.In a brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the school district’s appeal, the Pennsylvania School Boards Association said the line the 3rd Circuit had drawn was too crude.”Whether a disruptive or harmful tweet is sent from the school cafeteria or after the student has crossed the street on her walk home, it has the same impact,” the brief said. “The 3rd Circuit’s formalistic rule renders schools powerless whenever a hateful message is launched from off campus.”The student, represented by lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Supreme Court that the First Amendment protected her “colorful expression of frustration, made in an ephemeral Snapchat on her personal social media, on a weekend, off campus, containing no threat or harassment or mention of her school, and that did not cause or threaten any disruption of her school.”The brief focused on that last point, and it did not spend much time defending the 3rd Circuit’s broader approach.The Supreme Court has a reputation for being protective of First Amendment rights. Chief Justice John Roberts, in an appearance at a law school last year, described himself as “probably the most aggressive defender of the First Amendment on the court now.”But the court has been methodically cutting back on students’ First Amendment rights since the Tinker decision in 1969. And in the court’s last major decision on students’ free speech, in 2007, Roberts wrote the majority opinion, siding with a principal who had suspended a student for displaying a banner that said “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”Driver said that suggested a blind spot.”There is at least one major area where Chief Justice Roberts’ defense of the First Amendment is notably lax: student speech,” he said. “I fervently hope that Roberts will regain his fondness for the First Amendment when the court finally resolves this urgent question.”This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
President-elect Joe Biden said Monday that his team has “encountered obstruction” and “roadblocks” from political leadership at the Defense Department and Office of Management and Budget that could undermine national security during the transition.
Why it matters: Biden warned that foreign adversaries could gain advantage if his team is cut out of vital information sharing with the outgoing Trump administration.
Before Christmas, the Pentagon abruptly halted meetings with transition officials.
Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said in response: “Our DoD political and career officials have been working with the utmost professionalism to support transition activities in a compressed time schedule and they will continue to do so.”
Biden said in remarks delivered after a briefing with his national security and foreign policy advisers: “From some agencies, our team received exemplary cooperation … from others, most notable, the Department of Defense, we encountered obstruction from the political leadership of that department.”
“Right now, as our nation is in a period of transition, we need to make sure that nothing is lost in the handoff between administrations. My team needs a clear picture of our force posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies.”
“We need full visibility into the budget planning underway at the Defense Department and other agencies in order to avoid any window of confusion or catch up that our adversaries may try to exploit.”
“Right now, we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.”
Miller’s statement began: “The Department of Defense has conducted 164 interviews with over 400 officials, and provided over 5,000 pages of documents — far more than initially requested by Biden’s transition team.”
“DoD’s efforts already surpass those of recent administrations with over three weeks to go, and we continue to schedule additional meetings for the remainder of the transition and answer any and all requests for information in our purview.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that the state is preparing for a surge on top of a surge of COVID-19 cases after December’s holiday gatherings, as emergency room care is being slowed in some parts of the state.
Statewide, California saw a 38% increase in COVID-19-related hospitalizations in the past 14 days. Newsom said Monday that while the majority of the state is currently seeing a plateauing of new hospital admissions, Southern California continues to see higher case rates and routine ER care is being slowed in some places.
“Routine emergency room care is being slowed down,” he said. “If you think this doesn’t impact you, if you think somehow you’re immune from impacts of COVID, there’s the direct impact, and that is the transmission of this virus. There’s the indirect impact — God forbid you have a stroke or heart attack, you have a car accident or you have other acute-care needs — the impact of this virus, this pandemic is being felt on the entire hospital system, and that impact obviously could impact each and every one of us, God forbid that we’re in need of emergency care, particularly now in LA County.”
>> Hear more from the governor in the video below.
Newsom noted that the good news about plateauing hospitalizations isn’t expected to last.
“We likely will experience in two weeks, 10, 14, 18 days from now, this surge stacked on top of these other surges related to holiday activities,” he said.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of Health and Human Services, said that while the regional stay-at-home orders have helped slow the virus’s spread, now is not the time for Californians to let their guard down.
“The trends have started to come down a little bit, but it’s not enough,” he said. “We need people not to let up their guard, to take this as seriously as possible so we can get through the middle of January, the end of January, continue to get the vaccine out into out communities.”
As of Saturday, more than 260,000 COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in California. Newsom said the state will be putting out details soon on how the COVID-19 vaccine hierarchy will be enforced in California.
“I just want to make this crystal clear: If you skip the line or you intend to skip the line, you will be sanctioned, you will lose your license,” the governor said.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A tip, a hat and a pair of gloves provided all the evidence authorities needed to identify the remains of a man they say triggered the bomb that rocked this city and took his own life on Christmas morning.
David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said Monday that a tip from the public put Anthony Quinn Warner on law enforcement radar and that DNA from gloves and a hat retrieved from a car Warner owned help confirm the identification.
“He was not on our radar,” Rausch said. “Calls that came in from the public were absolutely key to identification, at least with a name, a direction the investigation could take.”
Warner’s body was essentially incinerated by the force of the blast when his recreational vehicle exploded on a quiet, downtown street, injuring three bystanders. DNA found at the scene was used to identify him, Rausch said.
Moments before the blast, a speaker system broadcast a warning to evacuate the area. Officers at the scene before the explosion said the speakers also played the 1960s hit song “Downtown” by Petula Clark. The lyrics, describing downtown as a place to seek refuge from sadness, begin with “when you’re alone, and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown.”
Police, acting on the RV’s warnings, evacuated several people from the area. Warner was the only fatality, but more than 40 buildings were damaged. Rausch reiterated Monday that Warner acted alone.
Still, this sprawling, fast-growing metro area of 2 million people is on edge. The driver of a box truck parked outside a convenience store in neighboring Rutherford County was arrested on felony charges Sunday after loudly playing audio “similar to what was heard” in the moments before Friday’s blast.
Tennessee Highway Patrol sent a robot to probe the truck. No explosive device was found, but investigation closed a local highway for five hours on Sunday, Wilson County Sheriff’s Capt. Scott Moore said.
James Turgeon, 33, was charged with two counts of felony for filing a false report and one count of tampering with evidence and held on $500,000 bond.
“There is no connection other than the individual taking advantage of the situation,” Rausch said Monday.
The focus of the explosion investigation remains on Warner, 63, a longtime Nashville-area resident. The RV was parked near an AT&T building downtown when the blast occurred. Warner’s father once worked for AT&T, and Rausch said the possibility that AT&T was targeted is one possibility being investigated.
The building was severely damaged, disrupting Internet, phone and emergency service communication across multiple states. Retailers were also affected – Walmart confirmed that outages affected multiple stores, and shoppers took to social media to report Walmart closures in some locations, while other locations accepted only cash.
Warner had held several IT jobs, and public records show he had extensive experience with electronics and alarm systems. He recently worked as an independent computer technician with the real estate firm Fridrich & Clark.
Federal agents have searched his home in Antioch, and the Fridrich & Clark real estate office in Nashville, for clues to Warner’s mental state.
A neighbor, Steve Schmoldt, described Warner as “kind of low key to the point of, I don’t know, I guess some people would say he’s a little odd.” Warner had placed lights and security cameras outside his home. He built a fence around his yard himself, Schmoldt told The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network.
“You never saw anyone come and go,” Schmoldt said of Warner’s home. “Never saw him go anywhere. As far as we knew, he was kind of a computer geek that worked at home.”
Warner had recent legal issues. Court records show Warner became enmeshed in a family dispute after he transferred ownership of a second family home to himself about one month before his brother died in 2018. The case was dismissed in October 2019 at the mother’s request. Family lawyer Yancy Belcher declined comment.
Court records also show a deed transfer of Warner’s residence from Warner to an individual with a Los Angeles address on Nov. 25 for $0.
Korenski requested people who knew Warner to contact police and share information while authorities investigate “any and all motives.”
Schmoldt said it appears Warner didn’t want to hurt anyone else.
“But if that’s the case, what other message is there?” Schmoldt said. “They have to figure out some kind of motive.”
Bacon reported from McLean, Virginia. Contributing: Natalie Allison, Brinley Hineman and Adam Tamburin, The Tennessean; The Associated Press
Now, the process of doling out roughly $900 billion in long-sought aid is set to start in the final days of the Trump administration, right as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to enter the White House. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Mnuchin are all vacationing this week, though a Treasury Department spokesperson previously said Mnuchin and Trump have been in contact.
The New York Attorney General is investigating whether a health-care clinic in the state fraudulently obtained Covid vaccine doses and distributed them to the public, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
Cuomo declined to provide details of the investigation because it’s ongoing, but he noted that it involves ParCare Community Health Network, which the state identified as a provider in Orange County, New York. ParCare allegedly misrepresented itself to the state’s department of health to obtain vaccine doses, Cuomo said.
New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said in a statement released over the weekend that the clinic may have “diverted [the vaccine] to members of the public — contrary to the state’s plan to administer it first to frontline healthcare workers, as well as nursing home residents and staffers.”
Because doses of the vaccine are in such short supply, states are rationing the vials out to certain priority groups before they’re made more broadly available.
ParCare said in a statement to CNBC that it will “actively cooperate” with the investigation. A representative for the clinic added that “Cuomo himself stressed the importance of getting all the facts, and providing the facts to the state is exactly what we have done and will continue to do.”
It’s among the first cases of alleged fraud associated with Covid vaccines, but it’s unlikely to be the last, Cuomo said, adding that fraud involving a valuable commodity is “almost an inevitable function of human nature.”
“We want to send a clear signal to the providers that if you violate the law on these vaccinations, we will find out and you will be prosecuted,” Cuomo said Monday at a news briefing. “You’re going to see more and more of this. The vaccine is a valuable commodity and you have many people who want the vaccine.”
New York State Police have been conducting a criminal investigation, Cuomo noted, and will refer the case to New York AG Letitia James, whose office did not return CNBC’s request for comment.
To send a clear sign to potential vaccine scofflaws, Cuomo said he will sign an executive order on Monday delineating the consequences of defrauding the state when it comes to vaccine distribution. He said the state may fine violators up to $1 million and the state will revoke the health-care provider’s license to practice in New York.
“We are very serious about this,” he said. “We will find out and it’s not worth risking your license, as well as a possible civil and criminal penalty.”
Cuomo described the penalties as “the strictest in the nation,” adding that New York is taking a “hyper-cautious, hyper-vigilant” approach.
“We have the penalties in place. We have the safeguards in place, but when you’re dealing with thousands of people, and hundreds of organizations, and a valuable commodity, expect a level of fraud,” Cuomo said. “As sure as night follows day, you’re going to have people who defraud the government.”
“I understand the value of one vial,” he added. “Some of those vials can do 10 vaccines. You could sell that one vial, so I understand the temptation.”
The president’s signature prevented a government shutdown that would have started Tuesday. More delays also would have jeopardized a federal eviction moratorium, which the bill extends by a month through Jan. 31.
Democrats have called the relief bill a down payment and plan to push for more aid after President-elect Joe Biden takes office Jan. 20. As they had called for larger direct payments throughout aid talks, they jumped on the president’s support for $2,000 deposits.
In a statement Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called on Trump to put more pressure on his party to back the payments during Monday’s vote.
“Every Republican vote against this bill is a vote to deny the financial hardship that families face and to deny the American people the relief they need,” she said.
In his own statement Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he is “glad the American people will receive this much-needed assistance as our nation continues battling this pandemic.” However, he did not mention any plans for bringing up the $2,000 payment bill if the House passes it.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday that he would try to pass the legislation in the Senate.
“No Democrats will object. Will Senate Republicans?” he tweeted.
House Democrats already tried to pass $2,000 payments by unanimous consent during a pro-forma session on Thursday. However, the vote failed because House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., did not approve it.
The chamber will take a full vote Monday. It will need two-thirds support to pass under a procedure that allows the House to vote on legislation more quickly.
Earlier this month, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., twice rejected attempts to unanimously pass $1,200 direct payments in the Senate. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., pushed for the checks as part of the relief package.
Schumer’s move to put pressure on Senate Republicans comes as two GOP incumbents — Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler — compete in Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate and shape Biden’s agenda. Democrats have made pandemic relief a major issue in the races.
The $900 billion pandemic aid portion of the legislation includes the $600 payments along with a $300 per week federal unemployment insurance supplement into mid-March. It extends programs that allow freelance, gig and self-employed workers to receive benefits and increase the number of weeks people can receive insurance.
The bill puts over $300 billion more into small business support, mostly in the form of forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans. It creates a $25 billion rental assistance fund.
It includes more than $8 billion for Covid-19 vaccine distribution and $20 billion to make shots free to Americans. It also puts $82 billion into education as schools struggle to reopen, and $45 billion into transportation, which includes airline payroll support.
The relief package does not put money into state and local government relief, which Democrats and many Republicans support as a measure to prevent layoffs. However, GOP leaders have opposed approving the aid without also creating a shield for businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits.
Democrats plan to push for state and local support and another round of direct payments, among other aid measures, after Biden takes office.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Hundreds of tips and a phalanx of law enforcement officers helped determine that Anthony Quinn Warner triggered the bomb that rocked this city and took his life on Christmas morning.
All that information and effort, however, have thus far failed to determine why. Investigators on Monday continued to try to put together the pieces.
“These answers won’t come quickly and will still require a lot of our team’s effort,” FBI Special Agent for Public Affairs Doug Korneski said Sunday. “None of those answers will ever be enough for those who have been affected by this event.
“We still have work to do.”
Warner’s body was essentially incinerated by the force of the blast when his recreational vehicle exploded on a quiet, downtown street, injuring three bystanders. DNA found at the scene, matched to samples taken at another location, provided Warner’s identification, Korneski said.
Moments before the blast, a speaker system broadcast a warning to evacuate the area. Officers at the scene before the explosion said the speakers also played the 1960s hit song “Downtown” by Petula Clark. The lyrics, describing downtown as a place to seek refuge from sadness, begin with “when you’re alone, and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown.”
Police, acting on the RV’s warnings, evacuated several people from the area. Warner was the only fatality, but more than 40 buildings were damaged. Authorities say it appears Warner acted alone.
“I cannot truly describe all the hard work that has gone into this investigation since Friday’s explosion,” Police Chief John Drake said. “Nashville is considered safe.”
Still, this sprawling, fast-growing metro area of 2 million people is on edge. The driver of a box truck parked outside a convenience store in neighboring Rutherford County was arrested on felony charges Sunday after loudly playing audio “similar to what was heard” in the moments before Friday’s blast.
Tennessee Highway Patrol sent a robot to probe the truck. No explosive device was found, but investigation closed a local highway for five hours on Sunday, Wilson County Sheriff’s Capt. Scott Moore said.
James Turgeon, 33, was charged with two counts of felony for filing a false report and one count of tampering with evidence and held on $500,000 bond.
The focus of the explosion investigation remains on Warner, 63, a longtime Nashville-area resident. The RV was parked near an AT&T building downtown when the blast occurred. Mayor John Cooper said the possibility that AT&T was targeted is one avenue being investigated by law enforcement officials.
The building was severely damaged, disrupting Internet, phone and emergency service communication across multiple states. Retailers were also affected – Walmart confirmed that outages affected multiple stores, and shoppers took to social media to report Walmart closures in some locations, while other locations accepted only cash.
Warner had held several IT jobs, and public records show he had extensive experience with electronics and alarm systems. He recently worked as an independent computer technician with the real estate firm Fridrich & Clark.
Federal agents have searched his home in Antioch, and the Fridrich & Clark real estate office in Nashville, for clues to Warner’s mental state.
A neighbor, Steve Schmoldt, described Warner as “kind of low key to the point of, I don’t know, I guess some people would say he’s a little odd.” Warner had placed lights and security cameras outside his home. He built a fence around his yard himself, Schmoldt told The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network.
“You never saw anyone come and go,” Schmoldt said of Warner’s home. “Never saw him go anywhere. As far as we knew, he was kind of a computer geek that worked at home.”
Warner had recent legal issues. Court records show Warner became enmeshed in a family dispute after he transferred ownership of a second family home to himself about one month before his brother died in 2018. The case was dismissed in October 2019 at the mother’s request. Family lawyer Yancy Belcher declined comment.
Court records also show a deed transfer of Warner’s residence from Warner to an individual with a Los Angeles address on Nov. 25 for $0.
Korenski requested people who knew Warner to contact police and share information while authorities investigate “any and all motives.”
Schmoldt said it appears Warner didn’t want to hurt anyone else.
“But if that’s the case, what other message is there?” Schmoldt said. “They have to figure out some kind of motive.”
Bacon reported from McLean, Virginia. Contributing: Natalie Allison, Brinley Hineman and Adam Tamburin, The Tennessean; The Associated Press
Women in Saudi Arabia have been allowed to drive since the kingdom lifted the ban in June 2018, one of the historic social reforms inaugurated over the last few years by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. Under the crown prince, the kingdom has encouraged women to work and loosened the guardianship system that gave women’s fathers, husbands or brothers the final say over their travel, employment and marriage plans.
But along with the changes came an ongoing crackdown on those who failed to fall in line with the crown prince, including members of the royal family, businessmen and clerics, as well as activists including Ms. al-Hathloul. After capturing international attention by defying the driving ban and speaking out against other restrictions in the kingdom, Ms. al-Hathloul and at least 10 other activists were arrested a month before the ban was set to expire, accused of treason in the state-controlled news media.
“My sister is not a terrorist, she is an activist,” her sister, Lina al-Hathloul, said in a statement on Monday.
“To be sentenced for her activism for the very reforms that MBS and the Saudi kingdom so proudly tout is the ultimate hypocrisy,” she added, referring to the crown prince by his initials.
Analysts said the timing of Loujain al-Hathloul’s arrest suggested that the government wanted to make clear that change flowed down from the Saudi government, not up from the people.
Saudi officials have dismissed any connection between the charges against Ms. al-Hathloul and her activism, instead saying that she was arrested because she was working with foreign entities hostile to Saudi Arabia. The counts against her have included demanding women’s rights and pushing for the abolition of the guardianship system, trying to apply for a job at the United Nations, and speaking to foreign journalists, diplomats and human rights organizations, according to her family.
“There are accusations of dealing with states unfriendly to the kingdom and with providing classified information and other issues like that,” the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, told Agence France-Presse during a visit to Bahrain this month.
All the while, stressed and fatigued election workers want to prevent reporting of the Senate vote counts from devolving into the mess that followed November’s vote, when President Donald Trump and allies spread unfounded claims about machines switching votes (Georgia uses paper ballots), the state’s voter signature verification process and other issues that fueled Trump’s overall claim that he was cheated. Ronda Walthour, the interim elections supervisor in Liberty County, said she wanted to hold more training for poll workers and observers before the Senate runoffs to address the issues.
“I’m going to try to have another class prior to the actual election, because I don’t want any issues like I had in November,” Walthour said. The litany of unfounded complaints and conspiracies about Georgia’s general election results stemmed partly from lack of knowledge about election administration — admittedly a niche subject even for political junkies before this year.
Walthour said some poll watchers thought they could “walk around and do whatever they wanted to do” in November, contrary to state guidelines that both dictate who can serve as a poll watcher and what they can do on site, generally restricting them from interfering in the voting process.
“The sheer flood of disinformation has undermined people’s faith,” said Gabriel Sterling, one of the top officials in the secretary of state’s office. “At the end of the day, what that means is you don’t trust your neighbor who’s running the election. … And that’s really weighing on a lot of them.”
The pandemic is also weighing on preparations, with election administrations hyperaware that Covid cases could throw a wrench in their plans at the last minute.
“We’ve had to close our elections office twice because of potential exposures to Covid-19,” said Marjorie Howard, the chair of the board of elections in Talbot County, a tiny county of about 4,500 registered voters. “It just so happened, thank God … it was not during an election week. Because that would have been horrible.”
Several election administrators noted concerns that the timing of the Senate runoffs, right after the holidays, could cause staffing problems.
“Not everyone is following the advice and not having large family gatherings or going to Christmas gatherings,” said Joseph Kirk, the elections supervisor for Bartow County. “All we can do right now is plan for contingencies, have a plan B available, and hope we don’t have to use it.”
Over the course of 2020, local election administrators across the country have had to recruit a whole new class of volunteer poll workers during the pandemic to replace seniors who disproportionately filled those roles in the past. On top of that, many offices needed significantly more workers than they were used to employing in order to process the unprecedented wave of absentee ballots that voters cast this year.
Lynn Bailey, the director of elections in Augusta’s Richmond County, normally has nine full-time employees on staff — but she had to add another 25 temporary employees who do everything from working early voting sites to processing absentee ballot requests and returns, which is a time-consuming process.
Election offices’ budgets have exploded under the strain. “This will go down as the most expensive election time in my career,” Bailey said. “We went into November with an election, when planned for back in the summer of 2019, came in at a budget of around $160,000. And I think the best estimate right now is that that election will come in at about $650,000.”
Roughly a quarter of the state’s counties received a grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, to which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan gave $350 million this year to close gaps in local election budgets. Trump allies tried unsuccessfully in several states to block those grants, which the center reopened for the runoff elections.
Trump’s intense focus on Georgia since the election has piled onto the concerns facing election administrators as they prepare for the Senate races. State officials have blamed Trump for threats against election workers, and the president’s complaints about mail voting have turned his party against a practice that once had broad bipartisan support.
Already, Georgia appears likely to be the epicenter of Republican efforts to change mail voting rules next year. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger endorsed efforts to roll back the state’s no-excuse absentee voting program in 2021, after the Senate runoffs. Raffensperger, a Republican, has been a frequent target for Trump since the president lost Georgia. But rather than side with Trump’s fraud allegations, he cited the burden on election officials as justification for changing Georgia’s mail voting program — which his office has previously touted as a national leader.
“Asking county elections officials to hold no excuse absentee ballot voting in addition to three weeks of early, in-person voting, and election day voting is too much to manage,” Raffensperger said in a statement.
The push would mark a rollback of voter access in the state and is sure to meet stiff resistance from voting rights groups and Democrats next year, though Republicans have full control of the state legislature as well as the governorship.
In the meantime, local officials in Georgia are trying to get through the election year that wouldn’t end.
“It doesn’t even seem like Christmas to any of us,” said Deidre Holden, the supervisor of elections in Paulding County. “Nobody’s had any time off. And that’s to be expected, because we have to get through this election.
“But it’s been difficult,” she continued, praising her staff. “You are physically tired, you are mentally tired. You are basically exhausted. But we know that we have to keep going on.”
OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) – The search is on to find whoever destroyed a sculpture honoring Breonna Taylor.
She’s the Kentucky woman killed in her home, earlier this year by police in Louisville.
The sculpture was put up just two weeks ago in downtown Oakland and was broken into pieces this weekend.
This definitely has been upsetting not only for the sculptor but others who are advocates for the black lives matter movement.
This bust was designed to be a symbol against injustice and now the sculptor is planning to rebuild it and make it stronger than before.
Chunks of ceramic chipped away from a bust of Breonna Taylor.
The sculpture in the middle of downtown Oakland found hacked to pieces just days after Christmas.
“I think it was an act of racist aggression,” Leo Carson said.
Sculptor Leo Carson put together the piece to honor the Black Lives Matter movement.
The bust serves as a tribute to Taylor who was shot and killed by police in Louisville, Kentucky during a botched raid earlier this year.
After months of carving and shaping, Carson’s artwork was installed in Latham Square on December 12th. Weeks later, it was vandalized.
“The attack on the sculpture was you know in some ways it felt like a personal attack because I put so much work and effort and so much of my self into it but far more important than that was it was an attack on Breonna Taylor herself and on the Black Lives Matter movement,” Carson said.
News of the destroyed bust drew people downtown Sunday afternoon.
Jodi-Ann Burey says the vandalism is a chilling example of how Black women are viewed and treated in America.
“The attacks are not gonna stop. It’s up to the community, it’s up to our society and it’s up to us to protect this statue and protect Black women,” Burey said.
Others say this defacement should not be tolerated in Oakland.
“It’s really upsetting and I’m trying to imagine who would come out here and do such a thing? Who would feel so threatened by something dedicated to her? I’m really hoping that it’s not someone from Oakland,” a resident said.
Carson salvaged the broken pieces to use in rebuilding the bust.
The next step is to make it stronger than before.
“I have just started a GoFundMe to cast it in bronze to repair it and to repair it and to reinstall it in bronze so that this couldn’t happen again,” Carson said.
The GoFundMe page has a goal of raising $5,000 to reinstall the bust in bronze.
Any funds over the cost, Carson says will be donated to Breonna Taylor’s family.
France’s CAC 40 rose 0.5% and Germany’s DAX index was up 1.3% on Monday morning. The U.K. FTSE 100 index was closed on Monday for the Christmas holidays.
Trump averted a government shutdown late Sunday, and extended unemployment benefits to millions of Americans. The signing came days after Trump suggested he would veto the legislation, demanding $2,000 direct payments to Americans, instead of $600. Stock futures in the U.S. rose slightly on the news.
Back in Europe, traders reacted to the announcement of a Brexit trade deal between the U.K. and the EU. The agreement, sealed after markets closed on Dec. 24, still needs to be approved this week by U.K. lawmakers before the Dec. 31 deadline.
In individual stocks news, Italy’s Saipem saw its shares rise 1.9% after signing a deal with the Italian navy. Germany’s Deutsche Post was up 3% after its CEO said the firm was expecting record profit for 2020.
—CNBC’s Eustance Huang and Yun Li contributed to this article.
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