A hospital in rural New York is pausing its maternity services as employees quit instead of getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
Six employees at the Lewis County Health System have resigned, and seven more are unwilling to get vaccinated, meaning Lewis County General Hospital will stop delivering babies for the time being, multiple news outlets reported.
“We are unable to safely staff the service after Sept. 24,” said Lewis County Health System CEO Gerald R. Cayer at a news conference.
The move appears to be temporary. During the pause in maternity services, Cayer said the health system will focus on recruiting nurses to get baby deliveries back up and running.
“We have a challenge to work through with the vaccination mandate,” Cayer said.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo passed a mandate Aug. 16 to ensure that all healthcare workers in New York must be vaccinated. More specifically, hospitals and long term care facility employees need to get their first dose of the vaccine by Sep. 27.
The original mandate included religious exemptions, but an emergency regulation passed by the New York Department of Health on Aug. 27 said that religious exemptions would no longer be considered for as a reason for healthcare workers to remain unvaccinated.
Cayer says he supports the vaccine mandate and that it is the key to maintaining a “healthy workforce,” NBC reports.
At Lewis County General Hospital, 27% of employees are unvaccinated, Cayer said.
Lewis County has recorded 2,626 COVID-19 cases and 31 deaths out of a population of 25,916. Only 46% of its population is vaccinated with one or more dose, below the national average of 63%.
Hospitals around the nation have offered incentives to attract employees to get vaccinated, including thousands of dollars in sign on bonuses. All over the nation, hospitals have suffered from nursing shortages as COVID cases surge with the delta variant.
Michelle Shen is a Money & Tech Digital Reporter for USATODAY. You can reach her @michelle_shen10 on Twitter.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a blitz of TV ads and a last-minute rally, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom urged voters Sunday to turn back a looming recall vote that could remove him from office, while leading Republican Larry Elder broadly criticized the media for what he described as double standards that insulated Newsom from criticism and scrutiny throughout the contest.
The sunny, late-summer weekend was a swirl of political activity, as candidates held rallies, continued bus tours and cluttered the TV airwaves with advertising offering their closing arguments in advance of the election that concludes Tuesday.
Newsom — who is expecting President Joe Biden on Monday for a capstone get-out-the-vote rally in Long Beach — was in a largely Hispanic area on the northern edge of Los Angeles, where he sought to drive up turnout with the key voting bloc.
Elder also was in Los Angeles, where he was joined by activist and former actress Rose McGowan, who repeated her claims from recent days that Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, attempted to persuade her in 2017 not to go public with her allegations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Siebel Newsom’s office described the allegations as a “complete fabrication.” In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Newsom characterized McGowan’s claims as a “last-minute classic hit piece” from one of Elder’s supporters.
The governor called Elder desperate and grasping, saying McGowan’s claims about his wife “just shows you how low things go in campaigns these days.”
He echoed his earlier criticism of Elder, saying the conservative talk show host and lawyer “doesn’t believe that women have the right to their own reproductive freedoms, he’s devoutly opposed to Roe v. Wade, doesn’t believe there’s a glass ceiling, doesn’t believe in pay equity laws.”
During her appearance, McGowan spoke warmly of Elder and lambasted Hollywood Democrats who she said traumatized her life. She now lives in Mexico.
“Do I agree with him on all points? No,” McGowan said. “So what. He is the better candidate. He is the better man.”
The last-minute exchange highlighted growing tensions in the election, which largely grew out frustration with Newsom’s pandemic orders that shuttered schools and businesses during the pandemic. Voting concludes Tuesday. Recent polling shows Newsom is likely to hold his job.
As Newsom’s “first partner,” Siebel Newsom, an actress turned documentary filmmaker, has championed gender equality and society’s treatment of women and families.
McGowan, 48, who is known for her role in the “Scream” movie franchise, was one of the earliest of dozens of women to accuse Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct, making her a major figure in the #MeToo movement.
Elder, who could become the state’s first Black governor, targeted some of his sharpest remarks at what he described as skewed media coverage.
Earlier this week, his walking tour of homeless encampments in LA’s Venice Beach neighborhood was cut short after a woman bicyclist wearing a gorilla mask threw an egg toward Elder and then took a swing at a member of his entourage. The confrontation set off strong reactions on Twitter, with conservatives charging the incident wasn’t immediately branded a racist attack because Elder is a conservative.
If he was a Democrat “it would have been a major story,” Elder said. He also said McGowan’s accusations largely have been ignored by the media, but argued that if similar charges had been made about him “that’s all you guys would be talking about.”
“This is a double standard,” he said. “I’m sick of it.”
Emails posted on Twitter by McGowan showed she had contact with Newsom’s wife, which her office confirmed but said their communication was “as fellow survivors of sexual assault and in Jennifer’s former capacity leading the Representation Project, an organization that fights limiting gender stereotypes and norms.”
One of McGowan’s key claims is that during a 2017 phone conversation, Newsom’s wife referenced a law firm that was working with Weinstein and asked her what the firm could do “to make you happy.”
McGowan said Sunday she didn’t recognize the firm’s name at the time. “I had no idea who that was. So, I just said nothing and hung up on her. That was my last contact with her,” she said.
The election will determine whether Newsom can complete his first term or will be tossed out of office more than a year early. Voters are being asked two questions: Should Newsom be recalled and, if so, who should replace him? If he gets a majority vote on the first question, the second question with the names of 46 replacement candidate is irrelevant. Otherwise, the highest vote-getter among the replacement candidates would become governor.
For three thousand years, armies have struggled through these rocky defiles and camped in its valleys. You can still see the insignia of regiments from the British and British Indian armies, which continue to be carefully maintained, along the sides of the road, overlooked by the forts they once built and guarded. From the rocks above, Pashtun tribesmen armed with ancient jezails, or flintlock rifles, would snipe at passing soldiers with amazing accuracy.
Republican candidate Larry Elder, who has the best chance of unseating Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in California’s gubernatorial recall election, is already preparing to dispute the results with escalating talks of “voter fraud” in the days leading up to election day.
Ahead of Tuesday’s recall election, Elder’s campaign has created an election fraud section on its website where supporters can join a petition to demand a special session of the California legislature to investigate the results. The website also contains a link for supporters to report any alleged election fraud.
“We trust in our officials to safeguard that ballot box… however, when those officials, either through laziness or incompetence, allow thieves to steal amidst the dead of night and cheat our ballot box, we can no longer rely on its contents,” the petition reads.
The conservative radio host has also been talking up possible fraud on the campaign trail, drawing criticism from Newsom and comparisons to former President Donald Trump‘s ongoing effort to undermine elections with baseless claims of wrongdoing.
Conservative talk show host and gubernatorial recall candidate Larry Elder speaks to the media after casting his ballot September 8, 2021 in the special recall election, outside a polling location in Los Angeles, California. Robyn Beck/Getty Images
After he cast a ballot for himself on Wednesday, Elder echoed Trump as he told reporters “there might very well be shenanigans” comparable to what happened in the 2020 election.
Since President Joe Biden won in November, his predecessor has been continuously pushing baseless claims that widespread voter fraud caused his defeat and that Democrats “stole” the election from him. Those claims have been thoroughly litigated in court and discredited.
Last weekend on Fox News, Elder voiced his belief that the 2020 election was “full of shenanigans” and his fear that “they’re going to try that in this election right here.”
Newsom recently described Elder’s talks of voter fraud as an “extension of the Big Lie and ‘Stop the Steal.'” On Friday, the governor told reporters “we’re four days out, the election hasn’t even happened, and now they’re all claiming election fraud. I think that’s important to highlight that.”
Elder has also threatened to file a lawsuit to dispute the election results, according to the Sacramento Bee. “We have a voter integrity board all set up—most of these are lawyers,” the candidate said. “So, when people hear things, they contact us. We’re going to file lawsuits in a timely fashion.”
During a campaign event Thursday, officials for Newsom said they are prepared to fight any lawsuits from Elder following the September 14 election, where voters will be asked to choose whether they want to keep or remove the governor with a replacement candidate.
Newsom will remain in office if more than 50 percent of California voters choose to keep him and recent polling indicates that he’s well positioned to beat the recall.
In a poll released Friday by the Los Angeles Times and the University of California Berkeley Institute of Government Studies, 60 percent of likely voters opposed recalling Newsom and 38.5 percent said they wanted him out of office. Another poll by Data for Progress showed that 57 percent of voters supported keeping Newsom and 43 percent wanted to remove him.
Newsweek reached out to Newsom for further comment.
House Democrats are looking to raise the corporate tax rate to 26.5 percent as a way to help pay for their $3.5 trillion social spending plan, according to a Democratic source familiar with the plans.
House Democrats are also eyeing an increase in the top capital gains rate from 20 percent to 25 percent, which is significantly less of an increase than Biden proposed. And they are considering raising the top individual income tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent while also imposing a 3 percentage point surtax for people with income above $5 million, the source said.
House Democrats are proposing a host of other tax increases as well, including limiting a deduction for noncorporate business income, estate tax changes, increased tobacco taxes and increasing a minimum tax on corporations’ foreign earnings, according to a document that was circulated on Sunday and obtained by The Hill.
The document gives a preliminary estimate that the tax ideas in total, along with savings from drug-price changes, would raise about $2.9 trillion in revenue. The document said that the $3.5 trillion in spending would be fully offset after also accounting for $600 billion generated by economic growth.
The House Ways and Means Committee has yet to formally release legislative text on tax increases, so details could still change. The committee started considering its portion of the social-spending package last week, and is scheduled to continue its markup on Tuesday.
A final piece of legislation will have to be approved by Democrats in both the House and the Senate, as well as the White House.
The removal of the limits allows South Korea to build ballistic missiles with larger warheads that hold destructive power and that can target underground bunkers where North Korea keeps its nuclear arsenal and where its leadership would hide at war, military analysts said.
When Mr. Moon visited his Defense Ministry’s Agency for Defense Development last year, he said South Korea had “developed a short-range ballistic missile with one of the largest warheads in the world,” an apparent reference to the Hyunmoo-4, which missile experts say can cover all of North Korea with a two-ton payload.
When North Korea last conducted a missile test, on March 25, it said it had launched a new ballistic missile that carried a 2.5-ton warhead. This month, reports emerged in South Korean news media that the South was developing an even more powerful weapon: a short-range ballistic missile with a payload of up to three tons.
The tit-for-tat weapons buildup signaled that the rival militaries were arming themselves with increasingly powerful missiles that can fly farther and carry more destructive power, and that are harder to intercept.
This satellite image provided by NOAA shows Tropical Storm Nicholas in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday.
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This satellite image provided by NOAA shows Tropical Storm Nicholas in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday.
AP
MIAMI — Tropical Storm Nicholas headed toward the Texas coast Sunday night, threatening to bring heavy rain and floods to coastal areas of Texas, Mexico and storm-battered Louisiana.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said a hurricane watch was issued for the central portion of the Texas coast with much of the state’s coastline now under a tropical storm warning. Nicholas is expected to approach the middle Texas coast late Monday and could bring heavy rain that could cause flash floods and urban flooding.
Nicholas over several days is expected to produce total rainfall of up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) in Texas and southwest Louisiana, with isolated maximum amounts of 20 inches (50 centimeters), across portions of coastal Texas beginning Sunday night through midweek.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the state has placed rescue teams and resources in the Houston area and along the Texas Gulf Coast.
“This is a storm that could leave heavy rain, as well as wind and probably flooding, in various different regions along the Gulf Coast. We urge you to listen to local weather alerts, heed local warnings,” Abbot said in a video message.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Sunday night declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm’s arrival in a state still recovering from Hurricane Ida and last year’s Hurricane Laura and historic flooding.
“The most severe threat to Louisiana is in the southwest portion of the state, where recovery from Hurricane Laura and the May flooding is ongoing. In this area heavy rain and flash flooding are possible. However, it is also likely that all of south Louisiana will see heavy rain this week, including areas recently affected by Hurricane Ida,” Edwards said.
At 11 p.m. EDT, the center of the storm was forecasted to pass near or just offshore the coasts of northeastern Mexico and South Texas on Monday, and hit south or central Texas on Monday night or early Tuesday. Its maximum sustained winds were clocked at 40 mph (65 kph) and it was moving north at 2 mph (4 kph), though it was expected to increase in speed early Monday. Gradual strengthening is possible until it reaches the coast Monday night or early Tuesday.
The storm was expected to bring the heaviest rainfall west of where Hurricane Ida slammed into Louisiana two weeks ago. Although forecasters did not expect Louisiana to suffer from strong winds again, meteorologist Bob Henson at Yale Climate Connections predicted rainfall could still plague places where the hurricane toppled homes, paralyzed electrical and water infrastructure and left at least 26 people dead.
“There could be several inches of rain across southeast Louisiana, where Ida struck,” Henson said in an email.
Across Louisiana, 140,198 customers — or about 6.3% of the state — remained without power on Sunday morning, according to the Louisiana Public Service Commission.
The storm is projected to move slowly up the coastland which could dump torrential amounts of rain over several days, said meteorologist Donald Jones of the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
“Heavy rain, flash flooding appears to be the biggest threat across our region,” he said.
While Lake Charles received minimal impact from Ida, the city saw multiple wallops from Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta in 2020, a winter storm in February as well as historic flooding this spring.
“We are still a very battered city,” Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter said.
He said the city is taking the threat of the storm seriously, as it does all tropical systems.
“Hope and prayer is not a good game plan,” Hunter said.
In Cameron Parish in coastal Louisiana, Scott Trahan is still finishing repairs on his home damaged from last year’s Hurricane Laura that put about 2 feet of water in his house. He hopes to be finished by Christmas. He said many in his area have moved instead of rebuilding.
“If you get your butt whipped about four times, you are not going to get back up again. You are going to go somewhere else,” Trahan said.
Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said via Twitter that Nicholas is the 14th named storm of 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. Only 4 other years since 1966 have had 14 or more named storms by Sept. 12: 2005, 2011, 2012 and 2020.
U.S. businesses are giving a mixed reception to President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for firms with 100 or more employees, with many larger companies or their trade groups welcoming the directive even as smaller businesses are bristling.
Some companies say the order imposes yet another burden that could intensify historic worker shortages and supply-chain bottlenecks.
Meanwhile, details such as precisely how the plan will be carried out and who bears the costs will likely remain unclear until the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issues an “emergency temporary standard” that will implement the requirement, legal experts say.
The order is expected to cover about 80 million private-sector workers and the vast majority of about 4 million federal workers.
On Thursday, Biden ordered firms with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested at least weekly for COVID-19. A separate executive order will require vaccinations for federal workers in the executive branch and contractors.
Many large companies are taking the mandate in stride because they already were putting in place their own vaccine policies or strongly considering doing so, says Kathryn Bakich, health compliance practice leader at Segal, an employee benefits consulting firm.
A handful of corporate giants such as United Airlines, McDonald’s, and Walt Disney imposed employee vaccination mandates on some or all of their workers in the spring. In turn, other large and midsize firms followed with similar policies this summer or moved to seriously consider them.
“I don’t think there’s anybody that’s not talking about it” says Bakich, whose clients are generally large companies.
“Business Roundtable welcomes the Biden Administration’s continued vigilance in the fight against COVID,” the group, which represents the nation’s leading companies, said in a statement. “Over the past several weeks many companies have decided to implement a vaccine mandate for some or all of their employees, a decision we applaud.”
Many companies that were reluctant to impose a vaccine requirement that may be unpopular with some staffers likely welcome Biden’s order, says Karla Grossenbacher, head of the labor and employment practice for Seyfarth Shaw in Washington D.C.
“This will provide employers with some cover,” she says.
Yet big firms with hundreds or thousands of employees “will have an easier time complying because they have the large human resources departments to ensure employees are vaccinated or tested weekly, says James Sullivan, co-chair of law firm Cozen O’Connor’s OSHA-workplace safety practice group.
“Many smaller employers aren’t equipped” to deal with those logistics, he adds, and will have to bear the expense of giving employees paid time off to get vaccinated or recover from the shot, as Biden’s order requires.
“Small businesses face daily challenges from pandemic requirements, locating qualified workers, rampant inflation, and supply-chain disruptions,” says Kevin Kuhlman, vice president of federal government relations for the National Federation of Independent Business. “Additional mandates, enforcement, and penalties will further threaten the fragile small business recovery.”
‘I’ll lose 30% of my workforce’
Mehtab Bhogal, co-CEO of Forever Floral, which sells handcrafted, artificial floral bouquets online, says he doesn’t have the HR staff to deal with the vaccination or testing of his 130 employees.
“It will eat up time and time is money,” he says, reckoning the tasks will consume 150 to 200 hours for his chief operating officer and production manager.
Bhogal says he’s already struggling to attract and hold onto employees because of the worker shortages, and the mandate will intensify those strains. He notes the company is based in Ogden, Utah, a conservative area that tends to view federal mandates warily.
“I assume I’ll lose 30% of my workforce,” he says. He says he also can’t absorb the cost of weekly testing and likely would only hire vaccinated job candidates.
“It feels like (the government) is kind of making employers do their dirty work so they avoid liability,” Bhogal adds. “It’s creating a lot of unnecessary headaches for us.”
But MediCopy, a Nashville-based medical records company with about 200 employees nationwide, created its own policy mirroring Biden’s plan two weeks ago, says CEO Elliott Noble-Holt.
“We are a healthcare service provider and it is important for us to lead by example,” he says. “Watching the President speak on the mandates made my team proud. It confirmed we are putting humanity first.”
Impact on worker shortages
The order could have a mixed effect on the nation’s worker shortages.
If a firm establishes its own vaccination requirement, employees who don’t want to get vaccinated could leave for a competitor. A federal mandate could limit such turnover because it’s imposed on all businesses with at least 100 employees.
“The administration’s approach will help equalize the playing field and take some pressure off employers who have been concerned about moving too fast or too early in this important area,” says Devjani Mishra, a leader of Littler Mendelson’s COVID-19 task force.
On the other hand, Biden’s plan could worsen the turnover problem if it prompts employees at companies with more than 100 workers to leave for smaller firms, Grossenbacher says.
Meanwhile, other details specifying how the mandate will be achieved are fuzzy, Grossenbacher says.
Will companies have to report vaccination and testing results to OSHA or simply keep track of them and possibly face an audit?
Who will bear the cost of testing — businesses or employees?
If a company fails to ensure its employees are vaccinated or tested, would it face greater legal liability if a worker gets stick?
It could, Grossenbacher and Sullivan say, though the OSHA order will likely more clearly spell out all of such issues.
“There’s a lot of unanswered questions,” Grossenbacher says.
That suggests a potential for difficulty in more competitive states like Virginia, where a surge of suburban votes led to Democratic victories in 2017 and 2019 — allowing them to take over the state legislature for the first time in decades. In polling, former governor Terry McAuliffe, the party’s nominee for governor this year, is currently running ahead of Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin, but below the 10-point margin by which Biden won. McAuliffe said in an interview that Trump remains a factor in the race, in part because he has endorsed Youngkin.
Tropical Storm Nicholas, which formed Sunday morning in the southwest Gulf of Mexico, is on track to be a prolonged and prodigious rainmaker for much of coastal Texas and Louisiana. At midday Sunday, a tropical storm warning extended along the western Gulf of Mexico coast from Barra el Mezquital, Mexico, to Port Aransas, Texas. A tropical storm watch extended northward to High Island, Texas, including Galveston Bay. Flash flood watches included the entire coastal region of Texas and southwest Louisiana, including Houston.
At 2 p.m. EDT Sunday, the center of newly formed Nicholas was located in the Bay of Campeche about 550 miles south of Houston. Nicholas was moving north-northwest at roughly 15 mph with top sustained winds of 40 mph, as confirmed by an Air Force hurricane-hunter flight on Sunday morning. Satellite imagery showed a disorganized but expanding field of showers and thunderstorms (convection), mostly toward the north side of Nicholas.
Figure 1. Official NHC forecast for Nicholas as of 11 a.m. EDT Sunday, September 12, 2021. (Image credit: NHC)
Forecast for Nicholas
Forecast models are consistent in bringing Nicholas on a gently arcing track from north-northwest to north-northeast over the next several days. By late Monday, Nicholas is expected to be paralleling the south Texas coast, and on Tuesday it is expected to slide ashore over the central Texas coast.
The main track question with Nicholas is how far east it goes on its path through the Gulf. Because of Nicholas’s angle of approach, a minor deviation in the projected track could make a major difference in Nicholas’s strength. Only a slight eastward departure could lead to a landfall further north, allowing more of Nicholas’s core circulation to remain over water and, which would give it more chance of strengthening. Sea surface temperatures over the northwest Gulf of around 30 degrees Celsius (86°F) and a very moist mid-level atmosphere (relative humidity around 80%) will support intensification through Monday, and wind shear of around 15 knots should not be too much of an impediment.
At midday Sunday, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) was predicting Nicholas’s top sustained winds will reach 65 mph prior to an expected landfall. If Nicholas’s track ends up displaced a bit to the east, it could approach hurricane strength before reaching Texas on Tuesday, as suggested by the 12Z Sunday run of the HWRF model. Conversely, a more westward track displacement could bring Nicholas just inland over South Texas on Monday as a weak tropical storm.
Storm surge from Nicholas will hinge on its exact track and landfall location. Catastrophic surge is not expected given Nicholas’s modest strength and its angle of approach. NHC is predicting a possible 2- to 4-foot surge over most of the Texas coast, including Galveston Bay. Similarly, most of Nicholas’s strongest winds will remain offshore, but tropical-storm-force winds capable of bringing down trees and power lines could occur with Nicholas as it moves inland around Tuesday.
Rainfall the big concern with Nicholas
Regardless of how much Nicholas strengthens, its most potent impact likely will be its rainmaking ability. Nicholas is hauling a large swath of tropical moisture toward the Texas and Louisiana coast, and it will interact with a frontal zone expected to sharpen near the coast. Moreover, upper-level steering currents are expected to weaken over the next several days as Nicholas reaches the upper Texas coast. By later in the week, Nicholas may be a tropical depression inching across southeast Texas at 5 mph or less. All these factors will enhance the storm’s rainmaking ability.
Figure 2. 7-day rainfall forecast from 8 a.m. EDT Sunday, September 12, 2021, to Sunday, September 19. Specifics of timing and location will vary depending on the track of Nicholas. Localized amounts may be higher than shown here. (Image credit: NOAA/NWS Weather Prediction Center).
The heaviest rains from Nicholas will most likely be close to the storm’s eventual path into southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana. Localized rainfall amounts along Nicholas’s immediate track could hit 10 to 15 inches or more over the next several days. Other pockets of 10 inches or more can be expected in bands of showers and thunderstorms (convection) that may be scattered along the coast within the storm’s broader circulation.
Southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana are all too familiar with colossal rainfall amounts, as evidenced by the record-smashing 30- to 60-inch-plus totals that hit the region during 2017’s Hurricane Harvey. Nicholas is expected to be much weaker than Harvey at landfall, but it may exhibit a similar slow pace of post-landfall motion, so the potential for flooding will need to be watched closely.
Further east, there could be several inches of rain across southeast Louisiana, where Ida struck, but the heaviest amounts likely will remain west of this region.
Nicholas the fifth-earliest 14th storm since 1966
Nicholas’ formation date of September 12 comes very close to the midway point of hurricane season, which is typically around September 10. The Atlantic averaged 14 named storms per year during the 1991-2020 period, so we’ve already had a full year’s worth of storms with half the season to go. According to Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University, only four other seasons since accurate satellite records began in 1966 have had as many as 14 named storms by September 12: 2020, 2012, 2011, and 2005.
Another rainmaker could approach the mid-Atlantic late this week
NHC was monitoring four other areas of interest in the Atlantic, any one of which could develop into a tropical depression or tropical storm this week. The system of most immediate concern is an area of disturbed weather over the Bahamas. Multiple runs of the GFS model have been developing this area as it heads northwest toward the Carolinas, though the system remains weak in all but a few GFS ensemble members and is absent from the vast majority of European ensemble members. Regardless of any tropical development, this disturbance could bring heavy rains to the Carolinas as early as Thursday, and rainfall may extend northward along the mid-Atlantic coast by late in the week or the weekend. As of 2 p.m. EDT Sunday, NHC gave this system 2-day and 5-day odds of development of 0% and 50%, respectively.
A tropical wave expected to move off the coast of Africa on Monday has strong model support for development, with NHC givig it 2-day and 5-day odds of development of 20% and 60%, respectively. This system will move westward across the tropical Atlantic, and it will be a threat to develop into a long-track Cape Verdes-type hurricane by late in the week. It is too early to tell if this system will recurve out to sea or potentially be a threat to the Caribbean and/or the U.S. in a few days.
Figure 3. Radar image of Typhoon Chanthu as it skirted the northeast end of Taiwan at 13:10 local time, September 12, 2021. (Image credit: Taiwan Central Weather Bureau)
Chanthu skirts Taiwan, heads towards Shanghai
After making landfall as a category 5 storm on the municipality of Ivana on Philippines’ Batan Island (population 13,000) at 0Z Saturday, September 11, Typhoon Chanthu spared Taiwan a direct hit, passing about 40 miles to the northeast end of the island on Saturday night. Chanthu brought heavy rains of up to five inches to Taiwan, but no major flooding has been reported thus far.
Dry air, increased wind shear, and decreasing ocean heat content have worked together to significantly weaken Chanthu, which was a category 2 storm with 110 mph winds headed north-northeast at 12 mph at 11 a.m. EDT Sunday. Further weakening is expected this week as Chanthu heads north toward China and slows its forward speed to 5-10 mph. On Monday through Wednesday, Chanthu is expected to bring very heavy rains to the Chinese megacity of Shanghai, which has already suffered from one other slow-moving typhoon this year: Typhoon In-fa caused $1.1 billion in damage July 22-26, dumping 37.4 inches of rain at Dalan Town, China.
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Born on Sept. 4, 1947, DeMonia followed his father’s path in appreciating, finding and selling antiques at furniture auctions, according to the Cullman Times. When he married his wife, Patricia, in 1972, he joked to the newspaper that he “had to indoctrinate her into antiques.” He would eventually also become an auctioneer, a career in which his jovial spirit and recognizable calls — “Hey, bidda, bidda, bidda!” — would make him a decades-long community stalwart in Cullman, 50 miles north of Birmingham.
Joe Manchin, the moderate Democrat standing in the way of Joe Biden’s signature $3.5tn spending bill, insisted again on Sunday he would not support the package, declaring the price tag too high and White House efforts to speed its passage too hasty.
The West Virginia senator, who earlier this month urged the administration to “hit the pause button” on the ambitious measure, is the swing vote in a divided 50-50 chamber. Last week, Ronald Klain, the White House chief of staff, said he thought Manchin was “very persuadable”, while Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, said the budget reconciliation bill was “full speed ahead”.
But in appearances Sunday on two political talkshows, Manchin reiterated his opposition, telling ABC’s This Week: “I cannot support $3.5tn. If I can’t go home and explain [the bill], I can’t vote for it.
“There’s not a rush to do that right now. We don’t have an urgency. Don’t you think we ought to debate a little bit more, talk about it, and see what we’ve got out there?”
Manchin did not say what figure he thought would be an acceptable federal investment in the bill, which targets healthcare, immigration reform and efforts to counter the climate crisis among other social priorities and programs. But in private discussions with colleagues he is reported to have floated a total of $1tn to $1.5tn.
His resistance has drawn the ire of progressives in his own caucus, including some House Democrats who are threatening to block a smaller, bipartisan $1tn infrastructure bill that has already passed the Senate unless Manchin gives way.
“You have an overwhelming majority of working families in America who want us to do this. You have the president, you have over 90% of the people in the House, over 90% of senators,” Sanders said in his own appearance on This Week.
“Is it appropriate for one person to destroy two pieces of legislation? Joe Manchin has the right to get his views heard. He has to sit down with all of us and we’ll work it out. It would really be a terrible, terrible shame for the American people if both bills went down.”
Manchin also spoke out against one of his most vocal critics in the House, the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has criticized his perceived opposition to spending money on social and infrastructure programs while at the same time being close to the fossil fuel industry.
“[I’m] sick of this ‘bipartisan’ corruption that masquerades as clear-eyed moderation,” she wrote in a tweet earlier this month, asserting that Manchin held weekly “huddles” with the oil company Exxon, and that “so-called ‘bipartisan’ fossil fuel bills” were “killing people”.
On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Manchin denied the allegation. “I keep my door open for everybody, it’s totally false,” he said.
“Those type of superlatives are just awful. I don’t know the young lady, I’ve met her one time. She’s just speculating.”
Of the House Democrats’ threat to derail the infrastructure bill, he said: “They have to do what they have to do. If they play politics with the needs of America, I can tell you America will recoil.”
Phuoc Dam has not forgiven Gov. Gavin Newsom for alleging that the first coronavirus case in California stemmed from a nail salon.
Dam, who owns Queen Nails in Brea, is still reeling from months without income after Newsom closed many businesses to stop the virus from spreading.
He marked his ballot “yes” on recalling Newsom, putting it in the mail weeks ago.
“It’s simple. He cost us our livelihood,” said Dam, 67, a Republican who moved to the U.S. from Vietnam. “We had to shut down for months and months for no clear reason.”
Asian Americans have increasingly gravitated toward the Democratic party, overwhelmingly supporting Joe Biden over Donald Trump in the last presidential election.
A poll released Friday by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and cosponsored by the Los Angeles Times showed that 70% of likely Asian American voters are against recalling the Democratic governor.
That’s a higher percentage than white voters at 56% and Latinos at 67%. Only Black voters, at 73%, are more anti-recall than Asian Americans, according to the poll.
Poll shows 60.1% of likely voters surveyed oppose recalling Newsom compared to 38.5% in favor of ousting the governor.
But in Little Saigon, opinions are more mixed. Many Vietnamese immigrants are vehemently anti-communist, which often translates into support for the Republican Party.
President Trump’s tough-on-China stance endeared him to many Vietnamese, strengthening their conservative loyalties.
Add to that the plight of business owners during the pandemic and Newsom’s nail salon remark, which was not backed by evidence, and the pro-recall contingent here is passionate.
Nail salons, along with other small businesses, have been an economic mainstay for Vietnamese immigrants, vaulting them into the middle class.
Vietnamese-language radio and television commentators have called the Republican-led recall the “top issue” facing the state, sprinkling their reports with images of Democratic heavyweights like Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Obama campaigning with Newsom.
The Vietnamese media has tried to stay neutral, offering information on what it takes to mount a recall while highlighting the “optimistic” mood among Democrats as well as Republican efforts to topple the status quo.
Larry Elder, the Republican frontrunner to replace Newsom if the recall is successful, has courted Asian voters by attacking the governor’s business shutdowns and highlighting how Asian American students have been hurt by affirmative action.
But Elder, a conservative radio talk show host with roots in South Los Angeles, has not caught on broadly among Asian Americans, either in Little Saigon or statewide.
The UC Berkeley poll showed 23% of likely Asian American voters selecting Elder for question two — the lowest of any ethnic group.
Dam, who has owned his nail salon for more than 20 years, said he left the second question blank because he is not familiar with the challengers.
After reopening last fall, his salon is down from 22 employees to 10. Customers are still fearful of outings like manicures and pedicures that require sustained indoor contact, and some workers are reluctant to come back, he and other salon professionals said.
Dam pointed to the French Laundry incident, when Newsom was caught violating his own coronavirus restrictions by dining with several other families at an expensive restaurant.
“I tell you, the governor was partying without a mask with his friends while telling us to wear masks,” Dam said. “He made it appear as if the law doesn’t apply to him, and this is not what people in Little Saigon respect. They respect the truth.”
At a small rally organized by Vietnamese recall proponents last month in Westminster, manicurists demanded that Newsom be ousted for not publicly apologizing that he and his staff made a mistake in May by singling out a nail salon as ground zero for the coronavirus.
Did community spread of the coronavirus start at a nail salon? Governor said so, and now immigrant owners worry about getting business.
Some passed out fliers with images of Newsom unmasked, to show that he flouted his own safety guidelines. Others gave interviews to radio and television reporters, detailing the huge financial losses they suffered after their salons closed.
At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, California was home to 11,000 nail salons, with 80% owned by Vietnamese Americans, according to the Pro Nails Assn.
Experts say the backlash against Newsom in the Vietnamese community is not surprising.
“Certainly, there’s a sense of insult to the community when a core group of its members has been portrayed negatively like this — especially when that community historically has leaned toward the Republicans” because of the party’s consistent anti-communist messaging, said Sara Sadhwani, assistant professor of politics at Pomona College who has researched voting behavior with an emphasis on the representation of racial, ethnic and immigrant communities.
Sadhwani said that while Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans and Korean Americans have steadily leaned toward the Democratic Party, Vietnamese Americans often have followed a different path.
Last week, Elder hopped onstage at the landmark Asian Garden Mall in Little Saigon, trashing the governor’s “draconian” state shutdown.
“A good third of all small businesses are gone forever,” he said. “Many of those businesses are owned by racial minorities.”
Manicurist Cathy Nguyen showed up because she was deciding how to vote. Nguyen, a Republican from Garden Grove in her 40s, said she was intrigued by Elder’s “open honesty,” especially on crime and anti-Asian violence.
At a Tuesday press conference, Elder, who is Black, criticized the media for not highlighting the race of anti-Asian hate crime perpetrators, many of whom he alleged were Black.
Nguyen said she “appreciates that this is a man who highlights the race of the perpetrators of crime when sometimes, politicians are afraid to mention race.”
But plenty of Vietnamese American voters are against the recall. Graphic designer Jessie Nguyen, a Democrat, is trying to persuade family and friends to vote “no.” Their attraction to Trump makes it an uphill battle.
“People want to be Trumpists” and do as Trump “would do,” she said.
Watching fellow pingpong players rocket the ball back and forth at the Orange County Table Tennis Assn in Fountain Valley, Vinh Tran said Newsom has handled the pandemic “beautifully.”
The state is still thriving economically and offering opportunities for immigrants, so there is no need to boot Newsom, said Tran, 57, a chemistry professor who is not registered with a political party.
“He did what needed to be done to keep us safe,” Tran said.
Hang Nguyen, 55, of Santa Ana, has been anti-recall from the start.
“No governor has been as visible as Mr. Newsom on fighting COVID,” said Nguyen, a restaurant manager, while in line for quail eggs at Bao-N-Baguette in Fountain Valley. “He deserves to be at the head of the state.”
Times staff writers Seema Mehta and Julia Wick contributed to this report.
For the past several years, Texas has been selling itself as a tech haven attracting start-ups and tech companies such as Oracle, Hewlett-Packard Enterprises, and even Elon Musk, Tesla’s billionaire co-founder and CEO, who has moved to the state. Big Tech companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Apple all have grown their presence in the state, opening new warehouses, data centers, and production facilities.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has advised that the Biden administration will “monitor” to ensure no one abuses COVID-19vaccine exemptions.
President Biden last week announced a mandate that required any company with at least 100 employees to mandate its workforce. The only way to avoid the mandate is to claim an exemption on either religious or medical grounds.
Some critics argue that the exemptions allow for simple abuse, but Murthy insists the administration will ensure that does not happen.
“Unfortunately, as a country, we have experience in dealing with exemptions, but we’ve got to be vigilant there and make sure that people are using them, you know, in the spirit that they’re intended and not abusing them or asking for exemptions when they don’t apply,” Murthy told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “That’s an area that we continue to monitor in the days and weeks ahead.”
Biden’s vaccine mandate has met immediate opposition from Republican governors, who made clear that they plan to oppose the mandate with legal action if necessary after claiming the mandate was “unconstitutional.”
“The American Dream has turned into a nightmare under President Biden and the radical Democrats,” Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said on Twitter in response to the mandate. “They have declared war against capitalism, thumbed their noses at the Constitution, and empowered our enemies abroad.”
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy delivers remarks during a news conference with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki at the White House in Washington, July 15, 2021. REUTERS/Tom Brenner (REUTERS/Tom Brenner)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott labeled the mandate “an assault to private businesses.”
“I issued an Executive Order protecting Texans’ right to choose whether they get the COVID vaccine & added it to the special session agenda,” Abbott tweeted. “Texas is already working to halt this power grab.”
Murthy said that he does “respect” that people “have a variety of opinions” on some measures, including the vaccine mandate, that the government has enacted to try and fight the virus, but he insists that businesses have “welcomed” those measures.
“A lot of businesses are actually relieved that these are going into place,” Murthy argued. “And we’ve heard a lot of feedback from the Business Roundtable and others that this will help create safer workplaces.”
“This is what we’ve got to do to get to the next phase of this pandemic response so that we can get through this and get back to normal once and for all,” he said.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer joked in an interview Sunday that term limits would “make life easier” for him amid calls from progressives to retire so President Biden and Democratic-controlled Senate can fill the lifetime post.
Breyer, 83, was asked by Chris Wallace, host of “Fox News Sunday,” about the possibility of setting 18-year terms instead of life terms on the bench.
“I think you could do that. It should be a very long term because you don’t want the judge who’s holding that term to start thinking about his next job. But it would make life easier for me,” the 27-year high court veteran said, smiling.
Asked about Democrats urging him to retire while the party holds a majority in the Senate so his successor could be confirmed, Breyer said “they’re entitled to their opinion.”
“I think they — and not only do they understand the political world much better than I – or they understand it pretty well. And there we are. What else do you want me to say?” the justice said.
Justice Stephen Breyer says Democrats are urging him to retire while the party holds Senate majority so his successor can be confirmed.Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty ImagesJustice Stephen Breyers said he favors long term limits, like the proposed 18-year limit, but cautioned against increasing the number of justices.J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Breyer said there are “many factors” he’s considering when it comes to retiring.
“And the role of court and so forth is one of them,” he said. “And the situation, the institutional considerations are some. And I believe, I can’t say I take anything perfectly into account, but in my own mind, I think about those things.”
Later, he reiterated, “I don’t intend to die on the court. I don’t think I’ll be there forever.”
In the interview, Breyer also cautioned about Democrats mulling increasing the number of justices on the court now that former President Donald Trump nominated three of them, tipping the court to a 6-3 conservative majority.
The Supreme Court currently has a 6-3 conservative majority.Erin Schaff/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
“Well, if one party could do it, I guess another party could do it,” he said. “On the surface, it seems to me you start changing all these things around and people will lose trust in the court.”
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