“Please do not sit or lay on the floor,” say the signs that greet people showing up for a monoclonal antibody treatment designed to fight early stage COVID-19 infections. “If you require immediate medical attention, please alert a staff member.”
The changes come after a photo showing Toma Dean and another person curled up on the floor of the library was shared widely across social media, resulting in local and national headlines.
Dean told News4Jax her 16-year-old son took her to the library after she left Baptist hospital, where she said an emergency room physician recommended that she go get the antibody treatment.
At first, she said, she was so dizzy she could barely stay on her feet. So she sat down, then laid down.
“I don’t know how I made it that far in the day,” said Dean, adding that she’s feeling better now.
A photo posted to Reddit shows a woman lying on the ground at the new monoclonal treatment site in downtown Jacksonville. (Screenshot via Reddit)
The Fleming Island resident said she had been in an out of emergency rooms for the past two weeks while she dealt with symptoms of both COVID-19 and pneumonia.
Doctors say the Regeneron antibody cocktail is meant for patients who are recently infected. That’s why they try to avoid administering it to patients who have been sick for more than 10 days.
“The reality is, by that point the virus has replicated so much that your body’s natural immune system is kicking in and working to fight it,” said Dr. Chirag Patel with UF Health Jacksonville. “We don’t really see that there’s going to be a lot of added benefit of getting a monoclonal antibody fusion or injections.”
While Florida has received shipments with hundreds of thousands of doses of the drug, Dr. Chirag noted there isn’t an endless supply. He said not everyone needs the monoclonal antibody treatment.
“It is best to get this as early as possible to stop it when there’s minimal virus burden,” he said.
Still, even with guidance from medical experts, it appears there’s confusion at the clinic about who can or should go and get the antibody therapy.
A woman who asked to remain anonymous told News4Jax she questions protocol at the site. She said when she went in for the treatment, she wasn’t asked for any proof of a positive test result.
“It just seemed very haphazard,” the woman said. ” … And there was a waiting room full of people. I saw one woman without a mask and room full of COVID-positive people. This site also caters to people who are getting a COVID test, so some of those people…might be exposed while they’re there.”
News4Jax asked staff inside the clinic about checking patients’ COVID-19 status.
Staffers said most of the people who show up have visible symptoms, so they don’t often check, but they have a system in place where they can see if someone has already tested positive.
During a news conference Friday announcing the opening of another clinic elsewhere in the state, one of 10 located throughout Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis discussed the treatment’s efficacy.
The governor noted that data has shown there’s a 70-percent reduction in hospital admissions for people who receive the treatment early after testing positive for COVID-19.
Still, Dr. Patel said the best ways to avoiding getting sick are getting vaccinated and wearing a mask.
Election workers processed mail-in ballots for Pinellas County residents at the Supervisor of Elections Office in Largo, Fla., on Tuesday.Credit…Eve Edelheit for The New York Times
The first polls have closed in Indiana and Kentucky — though polls in the western parts of those states will be open for another hour — and results should start trickling in soon. They will be incomplete and potentially very unrepresentative of the final numbers, though, so caution and patience are both warranted.
But one thing is already clear: The turnout in this election will be historic.
We won’t know the final turnout numbers for some time, but they are on track to be enormous, as evidenced by the fact that at least six states have already surpassed their 2016 vote totals with several hours left to go in many places.
According to the United States Election Project, 2020 votes have already exceeded 2016 votes in Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Oregon, Texas and Washington State.
By the end of the night, the same could easily be true in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina and Utah, all of which had reported more than 90 percent of their 2016 totals by earlier today.
Michael P. McDonald, a University of Florida professor who compiles data from across the nation, said that the country appeared to be on track for roughly 160 million total votes cast. That would mean a turnout rate of about 67 percent of the eligible voting population — higher than the United States has seen in more than a century.
Around the nation, Black voters were on pace to greatly surpass their turnout from 2016, according to voter data analyzed and released Tuesday by the Collective PAC, which is dedicated to electing Black lawmakers.
Quentin James, the founder of the PAC, said more than 616,000 Black people had already cast ballots in Texas — more than the 582,000 who voted in 2016 — and that the turnout of Black voters in Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona was on pace to easily overtake 2016 levels.
In Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, Democratic officials said they felt particularly bullish about turnout in Philadelphia. With just under 400,000 mail ballots cast and lines at hundreds of polling places around the city starting at 6:30 a.m., one Democratic official said he thought the turnout could surge past levels seen in 2008 for former President Barack Obama.
On the other side, Bill Bretz, chairman of the Republican Party in Westmoreland County, Pa., which includes eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh, said turnout had been “exceptionally high” there.
We don’t have enough information yet to say whether more Democrats or more Republicans voted in most states. We do know that Democrats had a strong advantage in early voting, and that Republicans were expected to have an advantage in Election Day voting — but there is much less Election Day voting this year than in past years.
“There’s only so much left in the Election Day vote,” said Michael P. McDonald, an elections expert at the University of Florida. “That means that Trump’s got to make up ground with a smaller potential pool.”
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En las noticias más leídas del día, las autoridades cubanas le negaron la entrada a la isla al ex presidente Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, cuando se dirigía a la entrega de un premio en honor al fallecido activista Oswaldo Payá. Enrique Peña Nieto afirmó que no hay marcha atrás en la liberación del mercado de gasolinas y en Estados Unidos 16 presidentes de empresas apoyan el impuesto fronterizo propuesto por Donald Trump.
1. No habrá marcha atrás en la liberación de gasolinas: Peña
El presidente, Enrique Peña Nieto afirmó que no hay marcha atrás en la liberación del mercado de gasolinas.
Según el mandatario, esta liberación traerá inversiones en infraestructura y construirá un escenario muy diferente, mejor. Las inversiones esperadas son alrededor de 16,000 millones de dólares. En una reunión con un grupo de comunicadores, se refirió a lo que pasará con el precio de la gasolina: “Tendremos un mecanismo de suavización que evitará fluctuaciones muy grandes de un día para otro”.
José Antonio Meade, secretario de Hacienda, ofreció detalles y aclaró que no habrá una banda de precios, porque no hay techo ni piso. En caso de que haya una tendencia de cambio fuerte en los precios, habrá un periodo de hasta 100 días para hacer la corrección en el precio.
No habrá marcha atrás en la liberación de gasolinas: Peña. Ver nota.
2. Cuba no le permite la entrada a Felipe Calderón
El día de hoy autoridades de Cuba le prohibieron la entrada a la isla al ex presidente de México, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, donde asistiría como invitado a la entrega de un premio en honor al fallecido activista Oswaldo Payá.
En su intento por viajar a Cuba, la aerolínea mexicana, Aeroméxico le comunicó al ex mandatario mexicano que la inmigración de Cuba le había emitido un comunicado en que le informaba que “el pasajero FCH no estaba autorizado para entrar a Cuba y solicitaba que no fuera documentado en vuelo AM451”. Calderón agradeció a la aerolínea sus atenciones.
El ex presidente chileno, Sebastián Piñera denunció también que el Gobierno cubano impidió a Mariana Aylwin viajar hacia la isla. “Un nuevo atropello a las libertades y derechos en Cuba. Mariana: todo nuestro apoyo”, sentenció el ex mandatario en su cuenta de Twitter.
Cuba no le permite la entrada a Felipe Calderón. Ver nota.
3. Al ahorrar busque proteger su dinero de la inflación
Cuando hablamos de ahorro, en la mayoría de los mexicanos persiste cierto escepticismo hacia los instrumentos formales, a tal grado, que sólo 15.1% de la población ahorra en este tipo de productos, mientras que 61.3% pierde dinero ya sea por ahorrar parcial o totalmente en instrumentos informales, de acuerdo con la Encuesta Nacional de Inclusión Financiera 2015.
Al guardar tu dinero en instrumentos informales, pierde poder adquisitivo debido al efecto de la inflación; dicho de otra manera: por el alza de precios, puedes comprar menos con tu dinero si éste no incrementa en la misma proporción.
Debido a esto, es recomendable ahorrar en instrumentos formales, pero no sólo eso, sino buscar productos de ahorro e inversión que generen rendimientos anuales equivalentes, al menos, a la inflación de cada año. Si quieres saber de qué forma lograr esto, entra a la nota completa.
Al ahorrar busque proteger su dinero de la inflación. Ver nota.
4. Unos 16 CEO de EU le dan el sí al impuesto fronterizo
Al menos 16 presidentes ejecutivos de empresas estadounidenses, entre las que destacan Boeing Co, Caterpillar Inc y General Electric Co, instaron al Congreso estadounidense a aprobar una amplia revisión del código tributario, incluyendo un polémico impuesto fronterizo.
Fue en una carta enviada a los líderes republicanos y demócratas del Congreso, en donde los ejecutivos dijeron que el impuesto fronterizo propuesto por los republicanos hará a los productos manufacturados en Estados Unidos más competitivos localmente y en el exterior, ya que los artículos importados enfrentarían en mismo nivel impositivo.
El presidente de la Cámara de Representantes, el republicano Paul Ryan, propuso bajar el impuesto a las ganancias corporativas a 20% desde un 35%, aplicando un tributo de 20% sobre las importaciones y excluyendo los ingresos por exportaciones de las ganancias imponibles.
DUBAI, Sept 24 (Reuters) – Iran must deal decisively with protests which have swept the country after the death in custody of a woman detained by the Islamic Republic’s morality police, President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday.
At least 41 people have been killed in the week-long unrest, state television said on Saturday. It said that toll was based on its own count and official figures were yet to be released. Protests have erupted in most of the country’s 31 provinces.
State media quoted Raisi on Saturday as saying Iran must “deal decisively with those who oppose the country’s security and tranquillity”.
Raisi was speaking by telephone to the family of a member of the Basij volunteer force killed while taking part in the crackdown on unrest in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
The president “stressed the necessity to distinguish between protest and disturbing public order and security, and called the events … a riot,” state media reported.
The protests broke out in northwestern Iran a week ago at the funeral of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died after falling into a coma following her detention in Tehran by morality police enforcing hijab rules on women’s dress.
Her death has reignited anger over issues including restrictions on personal freedoms in Iran, the strict dress codes for women, and an economy reeling from sanctions.
Women have played a prominent role in the protests, waving and burning their veils. Some have publicly cut their hair as furious crowds called for the fall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The protests are the largest to sweep the country since demonstrations over fuel prices in 2019, when Reuters reported 1,500 people were killed in a crackdown on protesters – the bloodiest confrontation in the Islamic Republic’s history.
On Friday, state-organised rallies took place in several Iranian cities to counter the anti-government protests, and the army promised to confront “the enemies” behind the unrest.
In neighbouring Iraq, dozens of Iraqi and Iranian Kurds rallied outside the United Nations compound in the northern city of Erbil on Saturday, carrying placards with Amini’s photograph and chanting “Death to the Dictator”, referring to Khamenei.
State television in Iran, which has accused armed exiled Iranian Kurdish dissidents of involvement in the unrest, said Iranian Revolutionary Guards had fired artillery on bases of Kurdish opposition groups in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
‘DEADLY RESPONSE’
At least three times this week, mobile Internet has been disrupted in Iran, the NetBlocks watchdog has reported. Activists say the move is intended to prevent video footage of the violence reaching the world.
On Saturday NetBlocks said Microsoft’s (MSFT.O) Skype video calling app was now restricted, the latest such measure after platforms including Instagram, WhatsApp and LinkedIn were targeted.
In an effort to help sustain internet connection, the United States is making exceptions to its sanctions regime on Iran – a move which Tehran said on Saturday was in line with Washington’s hostile stance.
Rights group Amnesty International said protesters face a “spiralling deadly response from security forces” and called for an independent United Nations investigation.
On the night of Sept. 21, shootings by security forces left at least 19 people dead, including three children, it said.
“The rising death toll is an alarming indication of just how ruthless the authorities’ assault on human life has been under the darkness of the internet shutdown,” Amnesty said.
State television showed footage purporting to show calm had returned to many parts of the capital Tehran late on Friday.
“But in some western and northern areas of Tehran and certain provinces rioters destroyed public property,” it said, carrying footage of protesters setting fire to garbage bins and a car, marching, and throwing rocks.
The activist Twitter account 1500tasvir carried videos of protests near Tehran university on Saturday. Riot police were seen clashing with protesters and arresting some.
Videos posted on social media showed continued protests in Sanandaj, capital of Kurdistan province, late on Saturday, despite a heavy police presence. Reuters could not verify the videos.
North Carolina sheriff’s deputies were “justified” in their fatal shooting of a Black man in April because the man ignored their commands and drove his car directly at one of them before they fired any shots, a prosecutor said Tuesday. District Attorney Andrew Womble said none of the deputies involved would be criminally charged in the fatal shooting of Andrew Brown Jr.
“The officers’ actions were consistent with their training and fully supported under the law in protecting their lives and this community,” Womble said during a press conference.
The district attorney said that Brown used his car as a “deadly weapon,” causing Pasquotank County deputies to believe it was necessary to use deadly force. Womble acknowledged Brown wasn’t armed with guns or other weapons as deputies were trying to take him into custody while serving drug-related warrants at his house in Elizabeth City on April 21.
In a statement, the Brown family’s attorneys said Womble was making an “attempt to whitewash this unjustified killing.”
“The bottom line is that Andrew was killed by a shot to the back of the head,” the attorneys said. “Interestingly, none of these issues were appropriately addressed in today’s press conference.”
The prosecutor said he would not release bodycam video of the confrontation between Brown and the law enforcement officers, but he played portions of the video during the news conference. The video came from four body cameras worn by deputies during the shooting.
An image capture from police body camera video shows Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies during the fatal shooting of Andrew Brown Jr. in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, April 21, 2021.
In the footage played to reporters, the deputies are seen jumping out of the back of a sheriff’s office pickup truck as it pulls up to Brown’s house. The deputies then rush toward Brown, who was in his car.
As the deputies surround the car, one of them, who Womble identified as Deputy Joel Lunsford, tried to open the driver’s side door.
Womble said Brown was holding his phone when the deputies approached the vehicle and that Brown threw the phone down and began to rapidly back the car away from the deputies. As the car backed away, the door handle came out of Lunsford’s hand, Womble said.
Brown then drove the car forward and to the left between two deputies as he was told to stop the vehicle. As the car was moving, Lunsford appeared to briefly brace his left hand against the passenger side of the hood.
“It was at this moment that the first shot is fired,” Womble said. He said the first shot fired at Brown’s car went through the front windshield, not the back as was previously reported.
As Brown drove away, the deputies opened fire with bullets entering the car through the passenger side of the car, the rear windshield and the trunk, according to Womble. He said the incident lasted a total of 44 seconds.
The three deputies involved in the shooting — Investigator Daniel Meads, Deputy Robert Morgan and Corporal Aaron Lewellyn — have been on leave since it happened. The sheriff’s office said Morgan is Black while Meads and Lewellyn are White.
Four others who were at the scene were reinstated after the sheriff said they didn’t fire their weapons.
“Clearly they did not feel that their lives were endangered,” the Brown family’s attorneys said of the four deputies who didn’t shoot.
An independent autopsy released by the family found that Brown was hit by bullets five times, including once in the back of the head. Lawyers for Brown’s family who watched body camera footage say that it shows Brown was not armed and that he didn’t drive toward deputies or pose a threat to them. Womble has previously disagreed in court, saying that Brown struck deputies twice with his car before any shots were fired.
The sheriff has said his deputies weren’t injured.
The Brown family’s attorneys called for the release of the full bodycam video and the State Bureau of Investigation’s report on the shooting. The attorneys also called for the U.S. Department of Justice to “intervene immediately.”
The shooting sparked protests over multiple weeks by demonstrators calling for the public release of the footage. While authorities have shown footage to Brown’s family, a judge refused to release the video publicly pending the state investigation.
LVIV, Ukraine—Russia pursued a pressure campaign in its invasion of Ukraine with nighttime strikes on civilian targets as the war entered its 12th day, while Kyiv’s military held fast along several fronts ahead of planned cease-fire talks.
Continuing their encirclement operations on Ukrainian cities, Russian forces prevented civilians from escaping via humanitarian corridors and shelled urban centers in the country’s north and south. Ukrainian forces continued to frustrate Russia with counterattack and sabotage operations.
ORINDA — A mansion rented through Airbnb for a Halloween party turned into a chaotic scene Thursday evening, when gunfire broke out, killing five people, injuring several others and sending more than 100 frightened partygoers fleeing from the posh neighborhood of this affluent city where violent crime is rare.
After confirming the deaths of four men in their 20s earlier in the day, police announced late Friday night that a fifth shooting victim, a 19-year-old woman, died at a local hospital.
Police still don’t know whether more than one shooter was involved or have any motives.
The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office and Orinda Police Department released the names of the dead victims — Tiyon Farley, 22, of Antioch; Omar Taylor, 24, of Pittsburg; Ramon Hill Jr., 23, of San Francisco/Oakland; and Javin County, 29, of Sausalito/Richmond. Hours later, the sheriff’s office said a fifth victim had been pronounced dead at a hospital and identified her as Oshiana Tompkins, 19, of Vallejo/Hercules. They said several injured victims were transported by ambulance, and others took themselves, to hospitals. They either suffered from gunshot wounds or were injured while fleeing the scene. No other information was immediately available.
According to authorities, the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office crime lab is analyzing two firearms retrieved from the house to determine whether they were used in the shooting or any other crimes. Numerous shell casings found there are also being processed and analyzed.
Romand Reynolds, of Vallejo, told this news organization that his 24-year-old son Armani mentioned that he was going to a Halloween party on Thursday night “and the next thing I know he was shot” three or four times. He said his son is now in a coma.
Police went to the four-bedroom home at 114 Lucille Way after getting a report at 10:45 p.m. of gunshots being fired inside a short-term rental. Dozens of partygoers were running away from the property when officers arrived, and three people were pronounced dead at the scene.
“There was a lot of noise and yelling and people running,” Orinda police Chief David Cook said.
Warning: The video contains graphic images and profanity.
A post shared by SaySo💁🏾♂️💰👯♀️🛣🤝 (@4svms) on Nov 1, 2019 at 4:01pm PDT
The fourth victim was pronounced dead at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, said hospital spokesman Ben Drew. Some eyewitnesses were interviewed by police, but no suspects had been arrested by Friday evening. Police had not publicly confirmed whether there was more than one shooter. “We’re still trying to wrap our arms around what exactly transpired,” Cook said.
Friends drove Armani Reynolds to a local hospital, and he later was transferred to Highland Hospital in Oakland, where he remained in a coma Friday morning, his father said that morning. Romand Reynolds came to the blocked-off crime scene on Lucille Way on Friday morning to try to retrieve his son’s car.
“As far as I know, he was a victim,” Reynolds said. “He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The property had been reported by neighbors for having large parties before but had not been on the city’s radar for months, officials said. City regulations on short-term rentals prohibit more than 13 people from occupying a property, City Manager Steve Salomon said. The owner had been cooperative with city officials after the reports of large gatherings — including one in February that resulted in a violation notice for the owner — and said he would comply with the regulations, Salomon said.
“Up until last night, it appeared they had complied,” Salomon said. City officials said someone had emailed a complaint to the city at 9:35 p.m. Halloween night about a large party underway at the home, and Salomon added that he believed the person also had called police. Neither police nor the city would say whether police responded to that complaint.
Several hours after the violence, the streets were in darkness as a group of cars wound their way up and parked on a street as close as possible to the crime scene. People in the cars got out and huddled together, some crying. They appeared to have been at the party or to know some of the victims. A woman in the group told a reporter they did not want to talk. The group left a short time later.
The killings represent the largest number of homicides in the city in recent memory: Orinda’s last homicide was in 2012, Orinda Mayor Inga Miller said, when a man hacked his longtime girlfriend to death with a machete.
“We are focused on the four people who have lost their lives, their families and the other victims of this tragedy, including the four other people who have been wounded,” Miller said. “Our Orinda police are focused on finding the parties responsible. This is a tragedy of unimaginable gravity.”
The party home is accessed via narrow, twisting streets lined with multimillion-dollar homes on a hill southwest of downtown Orinda. The city of around 19,000 in central Contra Costa County is known as a quiet bedroom community.
But area residents said the Lucille Way house was known for hosting large, rowdy parties. Once there was a hit-and-run, and another time a liquor bottle was thrown into an adjacent property, according to two residents who did not want their names used.
Property records list the owner of the 3,972-square-foot home as Michael Young Wang and show a 2005 purchase price of $1.25 million. Residents from four homes in the neighborhood said he never appeared to move in or live there. Records show that Wang’s primary residence is in Concord. At the Concord home Friday, a Subaru SUV sat in the driveway, and although someone could be seen moving behind the curtains of a window, no one answered the door.
Police Chief Cook said that on Halloween the Lucille Way house was being rented by people “not from Orinda.” He declined to elaborate.
A screenshot of the Airbnb listing for the home, provided by Airbnb, showed that the owner specified there should be no weapons, smoking or marijuana, and warned that “neighbors are close” so the time between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. was supposed to be quiet.
“We are horrified by this tragedy and are in close communication with Chief David Cook of Orinda Police to offer our support with his investigation into who committed this senseless violence,” Airbnb spokesperson Ben Breit said.
The company now has banned the person who booked the house from its platform, Breit said, adding that parties were specifically prohibited in the property listing.
Mayor Miller said the City Council would “discuss the issue of short-term rentals” at its next meeting, an indication the city might consider additional restrictions.
According to social media posts, an “AirBNB mansion party” had been advertised for Halloween night. The flier was adorned with crime-scene tape and told attendees to send a direct message to obtain the location and to “BYOB” and “BYOW” (Bring Your Own Weed).
This is a flyer advertising the “Air BNB Mansion Party” that ended with a shooting that killed five people. The Instagram account of the person who posted the flyer has since been deleted. (Instagram screen shot)
Neighborhood resident Willie Yee said he was watching the news Halloween night when he heard “dozens” of people running in a panic for their cars.
“I knew right away this wasn’t anything ordinary going on,” Yee said.
The town is generally so quiet, Yee said, that people call it “Bor-inda.”
Even so, it’s not the first time an Airbnb party has made headlines in Orinda. In 2016, a party at a short-term rental on Camino Encinas led to a brawl, leaving one man in critical condition. The following year, the City Council adopted an ordinance requiring residents to register with the city and abide by various regulations if they wished to offer their homes as vacation rentals through Airbnb and other services.
Halloween parties, often festive affairs, have seen striking upticks of fatal violence last year and this year. In Long Beach this week, three men died and nine others were injured late Wednesday during a joint birthday-Halloween party. In an off-campus college party Sunday in Greenville, Texas, two people were fatally shot and 12 others injured. Last year, a private Halloween party in East Palo Alto left two men dead and two others critically injured.
Staff writers Angela Ruggiero, Jon Kawamoto, Levi Sumagaysay, George Kelly Alejandra Armstrong and Martha Ross contributed to this report.
Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce and Trump 2020 campaign press communications director Erin Perrine weigh in.
The Democrats’ presumptive nomination of Joe Biden shows the party has no new ideas and needs “a vessel for the radical social agenda,” Trump campaign press communications director Erin Perrine told “Hannity” Friday.
Perrine told host Jason Chaffetz that Biden’s delayed choice of a running mate helps prove her point.
“We have seen him delay and delay and delay,” she said. “Remember, if they had the [Democratic] convention at the normal time, it would have happened a month ago. Why is it so delayed?”
“Joe Biden has bad choices across the board, between crazy or even crazier when it comes to who he will try to pick,” Perrine went on, describing Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., as “Comrade Karen Bass who praises socialist dictators,” a reference to Bass’ warm words for Cuban despot Fidel Castro.
She added that another presumed contender, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, has an “abysmal record from the Obama/Biden administration.”
“It truly doesn’t matter who Joe Biden picks because it is a bad choice pool all around for him,” Perrine said. “Not only is this who he thinks will be the future of the Democrat Party — he says he is the transition candidate — but look who he is talking about. He is floating ‘Pretend Governor’ [of Georgia] Stacey Abrams or Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Queen of Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Do with her tyrannical hold in Michigan.”
“It truly doesn’t matter, Joe Biden is an empty vessel filled by the radicals.”
‘Hannity’ host weighs in on Democrats’ response to the South Carolina Republican’s rebuttal to President Biden’s Congressional address
Sean Hannity blasted far-left Democrats on Thursday’s “Hannity” for attacking South Carolina Senator Tim Scott with a “stream of nasty, racist, despicable comments,” saying the individuals “lecturing America” on being a “racist country” are the “very same people” who insulted Tim Scott with “vile smears and slander.”
HANNITY: Only 26 million people tuned in to Joe’s address. That’s just over half the audience that President Trump received during his first joint speech in 2017. But the star of the night was not even close to Joe Biden. Instead, it was South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. He delivered the Republican response. And instead of vilifying America, Senator Scott, well, he used his own incredible, inspiring life story to lift up everybody.
While Senator Scott made it very clear that America is not a racist country, he did talk about and acknowledge the racism that he faces regularly and described it as much of it coming from so-called progressives on the left… Right on cue, far-left Twitter, they responded to Senator Scott with a stream of nasty, racist, despicable comments. The slur “Uncle Tim” was allowed by “@Jack” to trend on Twitter for a whopping 12 hours. Jack, you want to explain that to us? The same “@Jack” that suspends and then cancels conservative voices all the time.
Over at NBC, the rhetoric was just as bad. Joy Reid attempted to, well, basically just smear Scott’s life experience as an African-American senator… This is the same Joy Reid on NBC News, once referring to Senator Scott as a token in the Republican Party, the same Joy Reid that used a racist slur to describe Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas… Apparently, according to Joy Reid, NBC News. I guess it’s perfectly OK to say racist things about African-Americans so long as they’re conservative, Republican.
The people lecturing America all the time, that America is a racist country filled with racist people, racist institutions, racist police, racist conservatives, the very same people who rushed on to Twitter last night, national TV insulting Senator Tim Scott with vile smears and slander. Senator Scott is a leader in the Republican Party. He has a powerful life story we can all learn from. He has principled values and beliefs. He’s earned his reputation as a US senator, gets things done. Anyone who minimizes Senator Scott on the basis of race is by definition racist, even if they have Democrat beside their name or show on NBC News.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. congressional Democrats on Saturday headed for a showdown with the Internal Revenue Service over President Donald Trump’s tax returns, setting a new hard deadline of April 23 for the federal tax agency to hand the documents over to lawmakers.
In an April 13 letter that appeared to move Democrats closer to a federal court battle against the Trump administration, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal warned the IRS that failure to comply with his request for six years of Trump’s individual and business returns by April 23 would be interpreted as a denial.
The Trump administration has already missed an initial April 10 deadline for providing the tax records, which Neal first set when he made his request on April 3. Democrats based their request on the panel’s jurisdiction over IRS enforcement of the tax laws regarding U.S. presidents.
But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday that Neal was “just picking arbitrary dates” in setting deadlines and said it was more important to get the decision “right” to ensure the IRS would not be “weaponized” in a political dispute.
“I do intend to follow the law. But I think these raise very, very complicated legal issues. I don’t think these are simple issues. There are constitutional issues,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings in Washington.
He could not say whether the Treasury, which oversees the IRS, would complete its review of Neal’s request by April 23.
Mnuchin, who has consulted with the White House and Department of Justice about Trump’s tax returns, said earlier this week that Neal’s request raised concerns about the scope of the committee’s authority, privacy protections for U.S. taxpayers and the legislative purpose of lawmakers in seeking the documents. He said he has not spoken personally to Attorney General William Barr about the request.
“Those concerns lack merit. Moreover, judicial precedent commands that none of the concerns raised can legitimately be used to deny the committee’s request,” Neal told IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in his letter.
“It is not the proper function of the IRS, Treasury or Justice to question or second guess the motivations of the committee or its reasonable determinations regarding its need for the requested tax returns and return information.
“Please know that, if you fail to comply, your failure will be interpreted as a denial of my request,” Neal wrote.
As Ways and Means chairman, Neal is the only lawmaker in the House of Representatives authorized to request individual tax information under a federal law that says that the Treasury secretary “shall furnish” the data.
Despite the law’s clarity, Democrats have long acknowledged that the request, if denied, would mean a federal court battle that could ultimately be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Legal experts say lawmakers could vote to hold administration officials in contempt of Congress, which would provide a basis for the House to ask a federal judge to order the Treasury Department to comply.
Congressional Republicans have condemned Neal’s request as a political fishing expedition by Democrats, while the White House has said the documents will “never” be turned over.
But Congress would likely win a court fight, though it could take months or even years to unfold, experts say. Neal’s request for the returns of a sitting president is unprecedented, and legal experts say its success or failure may depend on a court ruling about the committee’s legislative purpose for seeking the documents.
Neal said in his letter that the request is needed to further “legislative proposals and oversight related to our Federal tax laws, including but not limited to, the extent to which the IRS audits and enforces the Federal tax laws against a President.”
Slideshow (2 Images)
Democrats want Trump’s tax returns as part of their investigations of possible conflicts of interest posed by his continued ownership of extensive business interests, even as he serves the public as president.
Trump broke with a decades-old precedent by refusing to release his returns as a presidential candidate in 2016 and continues to do so as president, saying his tax returns are under IRS audit.
But the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, told a House panel in February that he does not believe Trump’s taxes are under audit. Cohen said the president feared that releasing his returns could lead to an audit and IRS tax penalties.
Reporting by David Morgan; additional reporting by David Lawder, Pete Schroeder and Jan Wolfe; Editing by James Dalgleish, Dan Grebler and Jonathan Oatis
A manager at the Christian Aid Ministries headquarters, left, speaks with a worker at the door of the center in Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Sunday.
Odelyn Joseph/AP
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Odelyn Joseph/AP
A manager at the Christian Aid Ministries headquarters, left, speaks with a worker at the door of the center in Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Sunday.
Odelyn Joseph/AP
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Two of 17 members of a missionary group who were kidnapped more than a month ago have been freed in Haiti and are safe, “in good spirits and being cared for,” their Ohio-based church organization announced Sunday.
Christian Aid Ministries issued a statement saying it could not give the names of those released, why they were freed or other information.
“While we rejoice at this release, our hearts are with the 15 people who are still being held,” the group said.
The missionaries were kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang on Oct. 16. There are five children in the group of 16 U.S. citizens and one Canadian, including an 8-month-old. Their Haitian driver also was abducted, according to a local human rights organization.
The leader of the 400 Mawozo gang has threatened to kill the hostages unless his demands are met. Authorities have said the gang was demanding $1 million per person, although it wasn’t immediately clear that included the children in the group.
The spokesman for Haiti’s National Police, Gary Desrosiers, confirmed to The Associated Press that two hostages were released on Sunday.
The FBI, which is helping Haitian authorities recover the captives, declined to comment.
The release comes as Haiti struggles with a spike in gang-related violence and kidnappings, with the U.S. government recently urging U.S. citizens to leave Haiti amid deepening insecurity and a severe lack of fuel blamed on gangs blocking gas distribution terminals. On Friday, Canada announced it was pulling all but essential personnel from its embassy.
The fuel shortage has forced hospitals to turn away patients and paralyzed public transportation, with some schools closing and businesses shortening their work hours.
Haiti also is trying to recover from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck in mid-August, killing more than 2,200 people and destroying tens of thousands of homes.
“This president, who helped create the hatred that made Saturday’s tragedy possible, should not come to El Paso,” he tweeted Monday. “We do not need more division. We need to heal. He has no place here.”
This president, who helped create the hatred that made Saturday’s tragedy possible, should not come to El Paso. We do not need more division. We need to heal. He has no place here.
O’Rourke’s comments came after the Texas congresswoman who represents El Paso on Monday said Trump is not welcome in her district as the community mourns the death of the shooting victims.
The El Paso shooter allegedly wrote a white nationalist manifesto ahead of his attack in the area near the U.S.-Mexico border, and many Democrats have pointed to the president’s rhetoric as encouraging violence.
Escobar said it is “probably unfair” to say the shooter came to El Paso because Trump held a February rally in the city, but she said Trump needs to reflect on his words and actions at rallies that could be inciting violent attacks such as the shooting.
Another mass shooting occurred within one day of the El Paso massacre when a gunman opened fire in Dayton, Ohio, killing nine.
California’s government faces a $54.3-billion budget deficit through next summer according to an analysis released Thursday by advisors to Gov. Gavin Newsom, the deepest projected fiscal hole in state history.
The estimate accounts for both an alarming erosion of tax revenues and a growing need for health and human services programs. While it measures the gap between revenues and expenditures based on projections made by Newsom in January rather than existing funds, the assessment nonetheless reflects a record-shattering collapse of the state’s economy, one created in just a matter of weeks by the fast-moving COVID-19 pandemic.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous hardship for families, businesses and governments across the world, the United States and California,” states the analysis released by the California Department of Finance. “It has endangered health, stressed the healthcare system, and caused devastating losses in family and business income.”
Newsom’s budget team forecasts a $41.2-billion drop in tax revenues compared to their estimates from just four months ago. Most of that — $32.2 billion — would appear in the fiscal year that begins in July. Current year tax revenues, according to the report, are expected to miss the mark by $9.7 billion, even though most of the state’s budget year had already passed by the time the virus became an immediate concern in March.
Expenses are also projected to skyrocket. The fiscal report released Thursday assumes some $13 billion in higher state costs due to the pandemic, with a combined $7 billion in higher-than-expected caseloads for programs such as Medi-Cal, which provides free healthcare, and CalWorks, the state’s welfare assistance program. As much as $6 billion in expenses are assumed to be the result of the state’s COVID-19 response.
The decision to release the dire estimate early — Newsom won’t present his revised state spending plan to the Legislature for another week — was likely prompted by a desire to calibrate the expectations of lawmakers and interest groups about what lies ahead. Lawmakers and a variety of state Capitol insiders were briefed about the projection on Wednesday, and many who reviewed the deficit projection predicted a bleak road ahead.
“It’s a really frightening number,” said Kevin Gordon, a veteran education lobbyist.
The impact on K-12 education funding could be especially severe. Schools receive roughly 40% of the state’s general fund revenues and, under a series of complicated constitutional formulas, could see their minimum funding cut by more than $18 billion under the Newsom administration analysis.
“The cuts allowed would eviscerate school budgets,” Gordon said.
And the reductions could come as state officials are asking schools to do more to help children, especially those from low-income families, when it comes to distance learning and provided meals.
In January, with the economy still expanding, Newsom proposed a $222.2-billion budget plan that projected upticks in spending on K-12 schools and healthcare programs. But that plan, introduced less than eight weeks before the governor declared a state of emergency to combat the coronavirus crisis, assumed a steady growth in personal income of 4% a year and continued low unemployment.
Those expectations have vanished. The state has processed more than 4.2 million unemployment claims since mid-March, nearly equivalent to all of the jobs in Los Angeles County. The Newsom administration estimates almost 478,000 jobless claims were filed in just the past week. The state received approval this week for an $8-billion loan from the federal government to cover the rising cost of those benefits.
The projected $54.3-billion shortfall is the largest such estimate since the $40-billion deficit predicted by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during the Great Recession in January 2009. In 2011, then-Gov. Jerry Brown said the state stared down a $27-billion fiscal hole. The Newsom analysis notes that projected deficits of the past may have been smaller from a total dollar amount, but also constituted a smaller percentage of the general fund than what lawmakers face this year.
A steady uptick in jobs and tax revenues erased the red ink of the past, with some of the money set aside in cash reserves. California voters boosted the maximum size of deposits in the state’s “rainy day” fund in 2014.
The efforts by state lawmakers, led by Newsom and Brown, to sock cash into that reserve fund could help soften the blow. The independent Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated last month that the state’s cash reserves total around $17.5 billion — money that could provide a cushion, but only under a series of strict conditions.
Lawmakers are also hoping that the crushing weight of a historic deficit will be alleviated by the federal government. Many of California’s emergency coronavirus expenses could be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In addition, the stimulus effort signed into law by President Trump provided $9.5 billion in relief to the state budget, with an additional $5.8 billion sent directly to California’s largest local governments.
On Tuesday, Newsom said he hoped federal officials would do much more.
“I imagine we would be front and center in that consideration,” he said of additional federal help.
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