Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said Tuesday on NPR’s Morning Edition that President Donald Trump was incorrect in saying coronavirus testing problems had been resolved.
“Yeah, that’s just not true. I mean I know that they’ve taken some steps to create new tests, but they’re not actually produced and distributed out to the states.” Hogan said, when host Rachel Martin asked him about Trump’s assertions. “No state has enough testing.”
In a coronavirus task force briefing Monday, Trump said America’s coronavirus testing was better “than any country in the world.”
“We have done more tests, by far, than any country in the world, by far. Our testing is also better than any country in the world,” Trump said on Monday.
“We have built an incredible system to the fact we have now done more tests than any other country in the world and now the technology is really booming,” Trump said.
The president also said his administration “inherited a broken testing system” and have now “made it great.”
The president also said over a million Americans had been tested for the coronavirus, though on a per capita basis, the country lags behind other developed countries.
Asked about testing on CNN’s “New Day” on Tuesday morning, Hogan said states were “flying blind” without access to enough tests.
“Without the tests we really are flying blind, we’re sort of guessing about where the outbreaks are and about what the infection rate and the hospitalization rates are,” Hogan said.
As hospitals fill with coronavirus patients, protective equipment and ventilators become “as important as testing,” he added.
The Maryland Republican, who also chairs the National Governors Association, said he was listening to the “smart team” in the White House like coronavirus task force leader Deborah Birx and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci who were giving accurate information.
“MURIENDO POR CRUZAR,” AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INCREASING NUMBER OF IMMIGRANT DEATHS ALONG THE BORDER, THIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 3 AT 6 P.M./5 C
Carmen Dominicci and Neida Sandoval present the Telemundo and The Weather Channel co-production
Miami – July 31, 2014 –Telemundo presents “Muriendo por Cruzar”, a documentary that investigates why increasing numbers of immigrants are dying while trying to cross the US-Mexican border near the city of Falfurrias, Texas, this Sunday, August 3 at 6PM/5 C. The Telemundo and The Weather Channel co-production, presented by Noticias Telemundo journalists Carmen Dominicci and Neida Sandoval, reveals the obstacles immigrants face once they cross into US territory, including extreme weather conditions, as they try to evade the border patrol. “Muriendo por Cruzar” is part of Noticias Telemundo’s special coverage of the crisis on the border and immigration reform.
“‘Muriendo por Cruzar’” dares to ask questions that reveal the actual conditions undocumented immigrants face as they try to start a new life in the United States,” said Alina Falcón, Telemundo’s Executive Vice President for News and Alternative Programming. “Our collaboration with The Weather Channel was very productive. They have a unique expertise in covering the impact of weather on people’s lives, as we do in covering immigration reform and the border crisis. The result is a compelling documentary that exposes a harrowing reality.”
“Muriendo por Cruzar” is the first co-production by Telemundo and The Weather Channel. Both networks are part of NBCUniversal.
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, is meeting with Republican senators throughout Tuesday on Capitol Hill, as the party finalizes plans for a quick confirmation process ahead of the November presidential election.
CNN’s Pamela Brown, Manu Raju, Ali Zaslav, Manu Raju, Lauren Fox, Devan Cole and Angie Trindade contributed to this report.
The wind had eased by Friday morning, slowing the blaze enough for firefighters to attack it head on. But although cooler weather and lower winds are forecast for the coming days, “fire conditions could change in an hour or a day,” Mr. Brown said.
As of Friday morning, the Caldor fire had burned close to 213,000 acres and was 29 percent contained. Crews continued dropping hundreds of thousands of gallons of water and fire retardant while firefighters crossed the water by boat — pumping water from Lake Tahoe to save remote cabins and vacation homes.
Little remains known about the origins of the fire, which began almost three weeks ago near the Eldorado National Forest. Last month, it leveled much of the town of Grizzly Flats, and has so far destroyed more than 650 homes and 12 businesses. Four emergency workers and two civilians have been injured.
More than 30,000 other buildings remain threatened, authorities said Friday.
Jeffrey Spencer, 61, who evacuated with his wife and mother-in-law from their home near the Eldorado National Forest, about 10 miles south of Lake Tahoe, said that though the fire continued to burn just miles from their house, he was feeling “cautiously hopeful.”
“Our lives and important papers and valuables, we got to get out,” Mr. Spencer said. “The rest can be replaced.”
Raw video: The storms have left 23 dead, three of which were reported to be children.
Search and rescue teams in Alabama are using dogs and heat-detecting drones to search for victims of the deadly tornado that tore through the southeastern part of the state, as new drone video and photos show the scale of the devastation.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said Monday at least 23 people were killed and 90 were injured when the giant EF4 twister with 170 mph winds hit the rural community of Beauregard, and dozens are still missing.
The tornado impacted what the sheriff described as a rural area that had a lot of mobile homes and manufactured-type housing. The twister created a debris field that spread over hundreds of yards, according to Jones, with some debris being thrown a half-mile away.
Authorities were expected to give an update on search and rescue efforts at 11 a.m. ET, but said earlier that crews were “basically using everything we can get our hands on” to comb through what was left of homes.
Debris litters a yard the day after a deadly tornado damaged a home in Beauregard, Ala., Monday, March 4, 2019. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Jones said dogs were being brought in from across the state, in addition to dogs equipped with “infrared capability to detect heat signatures.”
Debris from a home litters a yard the day after a tornado blew it off its foundation, lower right, in Beauregard, Ala., Monday, March 4, 2019. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Photos taken in the area on Monday show what was previously mobile homes tucked among tall pine trees now smashed into unrecognizable piles of rubble.
Friends in eastern Alabama are helping tornado survivors retrieve the scattered pieces of their lives after devastating winds destroyed their homes and killed at least 23 people. (Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser via AP)
Toys, clothes, insulation, water heaters and pieces of metal were scattered across the hillsides where once towering pines were snapped in half.
Tornado damage near Beauregard, Ala., on Monday March 4, 2019. (Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser via AP)
As residents began picking through the debris on Monday, some made gruesome discoveries.
Beauregard resident Carol Dean told the Associated Press that the body of her husband, 53-year-old David Wayne Dean, was discovered on the side of an embankment in the neighbor’s yard.
Carol Dean, right, cries while embraced by Megan Anderson and her 18-month-old daughter Madilyn, as Dean sifts through the debris of the home she shared with her husband, David Wayne Dean, who died when a tornado destroyed the house in Beauregard, Ala., Monday, March 4, 2019. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
“Our son found him. He was done and gone before we got to him,” an emotional Dean told the AP. “My life is gone. He was the reason I lived, the reason that I got up.”
Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said at an afternoon news conference that three children, ages 6, 9 and 10 were among the dead in Sunday’s tornado.
Debris from a home litters a yard the day after a tornado blew it off its foundation, at right, in Beauregard, Ala., Monday, March 4, 2019. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Harris said all but six of the people killed in the storm have been identified, and his office soon will begin contacting families about funeral homes and arrangements. He also warned that the overall death toll could still increase as searches continue.
Chris Darden, meteorologist-in-charge at the NWS’ Birmingham office said at a news conference it was the deadliest tornado in the United States since the twister that hit Moore, Oklahoma in 2013. The storm had a track of at least 24 miles.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said the tornado ravaged a “tight-knit” community of people.
“We lost children, mothers, fathers, neighbors, and friends,” she said.
BET founder Bob Johnson is putting his money on Donald Trump to spend another four years in the White House.
Johnson, America’s first black billionaire, thinks there’s no Democrat who can take down the president in 2020.
“If you take a snapshot today, I don’t think that group is capable of beating Trump despite what the polls say,” Johnson, 73, told CNBC. “I think the president has always been in a position where it’s his to lose based on his bringing a sort of disruptive force into what would be called political norms.”
Though the president remains rock solid with GOP voters, he has struggled with African Americans. He received just 8 percent of the black vote in 2016, has made many overtures to African Americans, including speaking at the Black Leadership Summit in Washington and his public bromance with Kanye West.
“What the hell do you have to lose?” Trump famously told black voters in August 2016, urging them to vote for him and arguing that Hillary Clinton and Democratic policies had failed their community.
“The suspect, a boyfriend of one of the female victims, drove to the residence, walked inside and began shooting people at the party before taking his own life,” the Colorado Springs Police Department said.
Sen. Rick Scott’s decision to make more than 70 appointments without consulting his successor as Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis (right), raised tensions between the pair of top Republicans. | John Raoux/AP Photo
Florida’s old GOP governor and new GOP governor appear to be on a collision course.
Scores of 11th-hour appointments by outgoing Gov. Rick Scott. Roadblocks for the new transition team. A rival inaugural ball.
The contentious handoff of the Florida governor’s office from Scott to fellow Republican Ron DeSantis has cast a shadow over their relationship, raising questions about whether the two prominent swing-state Republicans are on a collision course as a result of their future ambitions for the White House.
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Tensions between the old governor and the new governor had been simmering under the surface for more than a month, but it burst into public view Tuesday after Scott abruptly left his successor’s inauguration ceremony, leading DeSantis to ad lib the parts of his speech in which he planned to personally thank Scott.
DeSantis’ team knew Scott would need to leave the ceremony at some point to attend his own Senate swearing in ceremony in Washington but were surprised when the former governor didn’t stay for the speech. DeSantis loyalists were already miffed that Scott’s political committee decided to throw a ball in Washington to celebrate his installation in the U.S. Senate that overlapped with the traditional inaugural celebration for the governor in Tallahassee.
Those slights followed two other perceived insults Friday, when the governor made more than 70 appointments without consulting DeSantis.
Earlier that day, DeSantis and his wife, Casey, were informed by Scott that the governor was going to throw a party in the governor’s mansion Monday, the day before the inauguration — even though the governor-elect, his wife and two small children had just moved into the Colonial Revival brick home.
“It shows how inconsiderate the Scott administration was,” said Congressman Matt Gaetz, a Republican who served with DeSantis in Congress and then led the governor-elect’s transition team.
Gaetz said the DeSantis family only learned at the last minute of the party plans at the mansion, when Scott told them, “Oh, by the way, I’m going to have a party with 48 people at the mansion on Monday.”
Scott’s behavior has so mystified Republican insiders that it’s led to a parlor game of guessing the root cause. One top GOP consultant in Tallahassee guessed it was a combination of Scott’s aloof personality, the stress of the Senate election recount, and a dwindling staff in Tallahassee.
“When Scott has a campaign or a goal he’s incredibly disciplined, but he’s not nimble and here he didn’t have a plan so it all fell apart,” said the consultant, who didn’t want to go on record speculating about Scott’s mindset.
Others in Tallahassee saw the outline of a coming 2024 clash. The governorship of Florida is a good springboard to the White House, and each man might believe that Florida isn’t big enough for the two of them — just as it wasn’t for former Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio in the 2016 GOP primary.
“It’s pretty clear that both of these men think they’re going to be president, one by being Donald Trump’s vice governor and the other with Scrooge McDuck money,” said Kevin Cate, a Democrat and adviser to the unsuccessful 2018 Democratic nominee for governor, Andrew Gillum. “Scott has always been politically awkward and it’s no shock he’d be awkward heading out the door, even to someone from his own party.”
DeSantis has already said he will “rescind” some of the appointments from the “lame-duck” Scott.
While the tension between the two camps was a new dynamic in the relationship between Scott and DeSantis, it’s not new to other Republicans.
Scott surprisingly declined to leave office a few days early to be inaugurated with the rest of the freshman class in the U.S. Senate, costing him seniority in the chamber and robbing his own lieutenant governor, Carlos Lopez-Cantera, of the opportunity to serve as acting governor for a few days.
The snub stood out compared to the last time a Florida governor, Bob Graham, won a Senate seat — he made sure to give his No. 2, Wayne Mixson, the keys to the governor’s office for about a week and the honor of getting his portrait painted and hung in the Florida Capitol hall with that of other governors.
The decision to not leave office early, which Scott said was to “fight for Florida families every single day of his term,” also meant Scott and DeSantis would have their swearing in events on the same day, which put some Republicans in a politically dicey position. They were forced to choose between attending the inaugural ball of the Florida’s newest United States senator and outgoing two-term governor, or the event for the state’s new governor.
Scott tried to quietly nudge some Florida consultants and lobbyists to attend his event, insiders say.
“The word went out from Scott World — not explicitly but we understood what he meant — if you go to DeSantis’ inaugural, you’re dead to Rick,” said one GOP consultant. “You’re finished.”
“I was not asked. I’m a Tallahassee lobbyist, not a Washington lobbyist,” said a veteran lobbyist. “But I know for a fact others were presented with what looked like an ultimatum.”
It’s not the first time Scott has ruffled political feathers within his own party.
In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s team groused that Scott was trampling over his message by repeatedly talking about how great the Florida economy was at the same time that Romney was arguing that things were horrible under then-President Obama.Two years ago, when Lopez-Cantera briefly ran for Rubio’s seat when Rubio decided to run for president, Scott’s consulting team opted to work for the lieutenant governor’s rival in the GOP race, developer Carlos Beruff.
After Rubio lost his bid for president and decided to run for reelection, every Republican in the race dropped out except for Beruff, whose decision to stay in was seen as an affront among the state Republican establishment and Rubio backers.
Yet Beruff’s name resurfaced Friday when Scott appointed him to the Florida Wildlife Commission, a coveted spot that’s reserved for top donors and supporters of a sitting governor. DeSantis is mulling rescinding the appointment.
One top supporter of Rubio, speaking anonymously out of respect for the senior senator, said the Beruff appointment by Scott was “a sign of his pettiness.”
“I used to think it was Scott’s team, but it’s Scott,” the source said. “They will go out of their way and spend inordinate energy to pick petty squabbles and fight battles that only exist in Scott’s head. No other senator holds an inaugural ball in D.C. But Scott did. He thinks he’s still like a governor. But what he’s going to learn in the U.S. Senate is he’s largely irrelevant as the most junior senator.”
Scott’s other last-minute appointments included putting his chief of staff Brad Piepenbrink to the Florida Greenways and Council. Piepenbrink, who couldn’t be reached, has been with Scott for years and was his top staffer until the very end. In addition, Scott appointed five judges on Monday just seven hours before he official left office.
Chris Hartline, a Scott spokesman, downplayed the notion of a rift between Scott and DeSantis, and said the outgoing governor had every right to make the dozens of last-minute appointments.
“Senator Scott and Governor DeSantis have a great working relationship,” he said. “Then-Governor Scott made a variety of appointments for positions that came open during his term, which is his job. If folks have an issue with that, so be it. But Senator Scott looks forward to partnering with Governor DeSantis to fight for Florida families.”
But Rep. Gaetz said Scott went further than that.
The last-minute party announcement at the governor’s mansion, Gaetz said, was emblematic of the way Scott’s team dealt with DeSantis and the transition team, which “was frustrated from the most significant issues to the most menial.”
Gaetz said the relationship began to deteriorate soon after Election Day, when both DeSantis and Scott squeaked by their respective opponents by such a small margin that it led to recounts in both races. DeSantis’s lead was bigger and he became the de facto governor-elect after an automatic recount. Scott, nursing a smaller lead, had to wait longer as a manual recount wrapped up.
While the ballots were being counted and recounted, Scott’s team was stonewalling the DeSantis team’s requests.
“After the election, we were looking for space to set up to start the transition and Rick Scott would not allow us to set up in the Capitol until there was greater certainty on his election,” Gaetz said. “He wanted to be there and in charge during this a moment of uncertainty for him. We weren’t trying to upstage him. We were just trying to go get in some offices and get some computers and paper and go forward with our agency head interviews.”
Gaetz said the administration wasn’t always eager to help out when it came to “simple stuff, like a matrix of appointments. On a lot of document requests we would make, they would give us the documents they wanted us to have. But if something was important for us to have, it was never a priority.”
“MURIENDO POR CRUZAR,” AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INCREASING NUMBER OF IMMIGRANT DEATHS ALONG THE BORDER, THIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 3 AT 6 P.M./5 C
Carmen Dominicci and Neida Sandoval present the Telemundo and The Weather Channel co-production
Miami – July 31, 2014 –Telemundo presents “Muriendo por Cruzar”, a documentary that investigates why increasing numbers of immigrants are dying while trying to cross the US-Mexican border near the city of Falfurrias, Texas, this Sunday, August 3 at 6PM/5 C. The Telemundo and The Weather Channel co-production, presented by Noticias Telemundo journalists Carmen Dominicci and Neida Sandoval, reveals the obstacles immigrants face once they cross into US territory, including extreme weather conditions, as they try to evade the border patrol. “Muriendo por Cruzar” is part of Noticias Telemundo’s special coverage of the crisis on the border and immigration reform.
“‘Muriendo por Cruzar’” dares to ask questions that reveal the actual conditions undocumented immigrants face as they try to start a new life in the United States,” said Alina Falcón, Telemundo’s Executive Vice President for News and Alternative Programming. “Our collaboration with The Weather Channel was very productive. They have a unique expertise in covering the impact of weather on people’s lives, as we do in covering immigration reform and the border crisis. The result is a compelling documentary that exposes a harrowing reality.”
“Muriendo por Cruzar” is the first co-production by Telemundo and The Weather Channel. Both networks are part of NBCUniversal.
As the Biden administration’s infrastructure negotiations with Senate Republicans picked up with a $1.7 trillion counteroffer on Friday, some congressional Democrats are getting antsy.
“We move as quickly as we can on going big, we move as quickly as we can on negotiations,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) told Vox on Wednesday. “At some point, if they won’t go where we believe the country needs to go and where the country seems to want to go, then we take off.”
President Biden issued his opening bid last month — the $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan —and the GOP responded with a $568 billion infrastructure counteroffer a few weeks ago. (Separately, the White House also introduced a $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, focusing on child care and education.)
The new $1.7 trillion White House counteroffer settles for the $65 billion Republicans floated for broadband funding, and pares back the amount of funding for roads and bridges from Biden’s initial proposal of $159 billion to $120 billion in new investment. It also cuts research and development from a proposed package, vowing to put it in other congressional bills going forward. But the president’s counter keeps funding for clean energy, removing lead pipes from America’s drinking water systems, and boosting long-term care workers.
“We recognize that still leaves us far apart,” a White House memo to Republicans obtained by Vox reads. “However, in service of trying to advance these negotiations, the President has asked us to respond with changes to his American Jobs Plan, in hopes that these changes will spur further bipartisan cooperation and progress.”
For their part, Republicans don’t seem all that happy. A statement released by a spokesperson for Senate Republicans Friday said, “based on today’s meeting, the groups seem further apart after two meetings with White House staff than they were after one meeting with President Biden.”
Democrats on the Hill say they support the White House actively talking to Republicans. But some are also anxious that negotiating with Republicans just won’t meet the needs of the moment — whether it’s on climate change or jobs.
“I don’t think it’s our job to pass something just so that we can say, ‘Well, that piece over there is bipartisan,’ and wait for the pat on the back,” moderate Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) told reporters recently. “I think people want us to get big things done.”
Democrats’ other option is budget reconciliation, a mechanism that would allow them to pass a massive budget bill with just 51 votes rather than the required 60 — mostly likely on party lines. This is what Democrats did for Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package, and they have at least one more opportunity to do it again before the 2022 midterms.
The Biden administration is caught between two promises: working with Republicans on Capitol Hill, and vowing to pass an ambitious economic agenda that reroutes the American economy toward clean energy and passes billions to make child care and long-term care more affordable.
Some progressive climate groups are arguing that a bipartisan deal could significantly hurt the president’s climate agenda.They argue Biden needs to invest heavily in electric charging stations, and to pass a clean electricity standard to get to his goal of 100 percent clean electricity by 2035. Biden’s counteroffer largely leaves his environmental provisions intact but would forgo a $180 billion investment into research and development — money that could be key for the Energy Department’s development of new technology to combat climate change.
“If you spend money on roads without making major investments in either mileage standards or deployment of EVs or investing in putting in new standards to ensure clean electricity by 2030 or 2035, you’ll be going backward on climate,” said Jamal Raad, co-founder of the climate group Evergreen Action and a former top staffer for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
Still, as much as some Democrats worry that negotiating with Republicans wastes valuable time, some of Biden’s closest allies on Capitol Hill say it is simply part of a process that could make moderate Democrats accept reconciliation, if and when that happens.
“When the president announced a big and bold proposal, the American Jobs Plan, several Democrats promptly said, ‘I will not vote for this — for reconciliation, a Democrat-only bill — unless there is a serious and determined effort first for bipartisanship,’” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told Vox. “It seems to me the issue isn’t the White House not going bold; the issue is one of order and timing.”
Bipartisan negotiations on infrastructure are ongoing
The main Republican negotiator is Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. Capito is the ranking Republican member on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which has purview over five-year reauthorization bills for surface and water infrastructure.
Capito and other Republicans who are ranking members on key committees had a nearly two-hour meeting with Biden at the White House earlier this month. The senators have also had subsequent conversations with members of Biden’s Cabinet and senior staff including White House counselor Steve Ricchetti, director of legislative affairs Louisa Terrell, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
While the main difference between Republicans and Democrats is over proposed corporate tax hikes to pay for the projects, there are other areas of disagreement. In staff-level negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans on the five-year surface transportation bill, Republicans have been pushing back on climate resilience provisions, a Democratic Senate staffer told Vox. Democrats see infrastructure as a key way to make progress on cutting down on fossil fuel emissions in the transportation sector — investing in 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations across the nation’s roadways to encourage more people to switch to cleaner cars.
“I’m wary of anything that has Capito’s fingerprints,” said Raad, the co-founder of Evergreen Action. “It would not just hurt our ability to hit our NDC [the US target to limit its carbon emissions], it would take us backward.”
Sen. Brown says he thinks the Biden administration should be trying to find common ground with Republicans at least to prove they tried. But Brown clearly believes that shouldn’t entail significant concessions, especially on climate.
“I assume they’ll obstruct on climate,” he told Vox. “We’ll try to come to bipartisan agreement; I don’t expect it [to happen]. We move forward in a big way.”
Negotiations take time — and that’s a risk
Biden has said he wants to see significant progress on bipartisan talks by Memorial Day, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has outlined July 4 as when she’d like to see an infrastructure bill get a vote in Congress, but that date could also be pushed if necessary.
It’s possible that Democrats were padding extra time with those initial deadlines, expecting negotiations would move it back. Still, a razor-thin majority in the House and Senate makes the risk of taking additional time a high-stakes strategy. When they will introduce the first draft of a bill is still unclear.
“I can’t give you a specific answer because I don’t know the answer,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told Vox, adding that appropriations work in the House will begin in earnest in July. “We’re going to have some time available to do the work of the Jobs Plan and the Families Plan in that time frame if, in fact, we can get agreement. And, if we can’t get agreement, work with the administration on how we’ll move forward.”
House Budget Committee Chair John Yarmuth (D-KY), who will be overseeing the budget reconciliation process in the House if Democrats do indeed pursue budget reconciliation as an option to pass their infrastructure bill, told reporters, “I think they want to give a reasonable chance for there to be a bipartisan bill. I think probably, sooner rather than later there will be a decision.”
Even if Democrats do decide to do reconciliation rather than move a bipartisan bill through regular order, there’s still a lot to be decided, including whether they’ll move one massive bill containing both the American Jobs Plan and Biden’s American Families Plan that deals with affordable child care and education, or split them into separate bills.
“I think it would be difficult to do two. I know there’s this idea about just doing physical infrastructure in one smaller bipartisan bill, but I don’t like that idea,” said Casey, who is shepherding the American Families Plan portion of Biden’s package through the Senate and wants to see both planks of Biden’s economic package passed through reconciliation.
The next week will be pivotal for Biden’s big shot on the economy. But the clock is ticking.
Venezuelan demonstrators throw stones during clashes with authorities, at the border between Brazil and Venezuela, Saturday, Feb.23, 2019. Tensions are running high in the Brazilian border city of Pacaraima. Thousands remained at the city’s international border crossing with Venezuela to demand the entry of food and medicine.(AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
A woman carries a cross during clashes between the opposition and the Bolivarian National Guard in Urena, Venezuela, near the border with Colombia, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019. Venezuela’s National Guard fired tear gas on residents clearing a barricaded border bridge between Venezuela and Colombia on Saturday, heightening tensions over blocked humanitarian aid that opposition leader Juan Guaido has vowed to bring into the country over objections from President Nicolas Maduro. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
CUCUTA, Colombia – A U.S.-backed drive to deliver foreign aid to Venezuela met strong resistance as troops loyal to President Nicolas Maduro blocked the convoys at the border and fired tear gas on protesters in clashes that left two people dead and some 300 injured.
As night fell Saturday, opposition leader Juan Guaido refrained from asking supporters to continue risking their lives trying to break through the government’s barricades at the Colombian and Brazilian borders. Instead, he said he would meet U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Monday in Bogota at an emergency meeting of mostly conservative Latin American governments to discuss Venezuela’s crisis.
But he did make one last appeal to troops to let the aid in and urged the international community to keep “all options open” in the fight to oust Maduro given Saturday’s violence.
“How many of you national guardsmen have a sick mother? How many have kids in school without food,” he said, standing alongside a warehouse in the Colombian city of Cucuta where 600 tons of mostly U.S.-supplied boxes of food and medicine have been stockpiled. “You don’t owe any obedience to a sadist…who celebrates the denial of humanitarian aid the country needs.”
Earlier, Maduro, who considers the aid part of a coup plot, struck a defiant tone, breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia, accusing its “fascist” government of serving as a staging ground for a U.S.-led effort to oust him from power and possibly a military invasion.
“My patience has run out,” Maduro said, speaking at a rally of red-shirted supporters in Caracas and giving Colombian diplomats 24 hours to leave the country.
Throughout the turbulent day Saturday, as police and protesters squared off on two bridges connecting Venezuela to Colombia, Guaido made repeated calls for the military to join him in the fight against Maduro’s “dictatorship.” Colombian authorities said more than 60 soldiers answered his call, deserting their posts in often-gripping fashion, though most were lower in rank and didn’t appear to dent the higher command’s continued loyalty to Maduro’s socialist government.
In one dramatic high point, a group of activists led by exiled lawmakers managed to escort three flatbed trucks of aid past the halfway point into Venezuela when they were repelled by security forces. In a flash the cargo caught fire, with some eyewitnesses claiming the National Guardsmen doused a tarp covering the boxes with gas before setting it on fire. As a black cloud rose above, the activists — protecting their faces from the fumes with vinegar-soaked cloths — unloaded the boxes by hand in a human chain stretching back to the Colombian side of the bridge.
“They burned the aid and fired on their own people,” said 39-year-old David Hernandez, who was hit in the forehead with a tear gas canister that left a bloody wound and growing welt. “That’s the definition of dictatorship.”
For weeks, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and its regional allies have been amassing emergency food and medical supplies on three of Venezuela’s borders with the aim of launching a “humanitarian avalanche.” It comes exactly one month after Guaido, in a direct challenge to Maduro’s rule, declared himself interim president at an outdoor rally.
Even as the 35-year-old lawmaker has won the backing of more than 50 governments around the world, he’s so far been unable to cause a major rift inside the military — Maduro’s last-remaining plank of support in a country ravaged by hyperinflation and widespread shortages.
Late Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Venezuelan security forces to “do the right thing” by allowing humanitarian assistance into the country.
The clashes started well before Guaido straddled a semi-truck and waved to supporters in a ceremonial send-off of the aid convoy from Cucuta. In the Venezuelan border town of Urena, residents began removing yellow metal barricades and barbed wire blocking the Santander bridge. Some were masked youth who threw rocks and later commandeered a city bus and set it afire.
“We’re tired. There’s no work, nothing,” Andreina Montanez, 31, said as she sat on a curb recovering from the sting of tear gas used to disperse the crowd.
The single mom said she lost her job as a seamstress in December and had to console her 10-year-old daughter’s fears that she would be left orphaned when she decided to join Saturday’s protest.
“I told her I had to go out on the streets because there’s no bread,” she said. “But still, these soldiers are scary. It’s like they’re hunting us.”
At the Simon Bolivar bridge, a group of aid volunteers in blue vests calmly walked up to a police line and shook officers’ hands, appealing for them to join their fight.
But the goodwill was fleeting and a few hours later the volunteers were driven back with tear gas, triggering a stampede.
At least 60 members of security forces, most of them lower-ranked soldiers, deserted and took refuge inside Colombia, according to migration officials. One was a National Guard major. Colombian officials said 285 people were injured, most left with wounds caused by tear gas and metal pellets that Venezuelan security forces fired.
A video provided by Colombian authorities shows three soldiers at the Simon Bolivar bridge wading through a crowd with their assault rifles and pistols held above their heads in a sign of surrender. The young soldiers were then ordered to lie face down on the ground as migration officials urged angry onlookers to keep a safe distance.
“I’ve spent days thinking about this,” said one of the soldiers, whose identity was not immediately known. He called on his comrades to join him: “There is a lot of discontent inside the forces, but also lots of fear.”
Guaido, who has offered amnesty to soldiers who join the opposition’s fight, applauded their bravery, saying it was a sign that support for Maduro was crumbling. Later, he greeted five of the military members, who in turn offered a salute, calling the opposition leader Venezuela’s “constitutional president” and their commander in chief.
“They aren’t deserters,” Guaido said. “They’ve decided to put themselves on the side of the people and the constitution. … The arrival of liberty and democracy to Venezuela can’t be detained.”
Analysts warn that there may be no clear victor and humanitarian groups have criticized the opposition as using the aid as a political weapon.
“Today marked a further blow to the Maduro regime, but perhaps not the final blow that Guaido, the U.S. and Colombia were hoping for,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. “Threats and ultimatums from Washington directed to the generals may not be the best way to get them to flip. In fact, they are likely to have the opposite effect.”
International leaders including U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are appealing for the sides to avoid violence. But at least two people were killed and another 21 injured in the town of Santa Elena de Uairen, near the border with Brazil, according to local health officials.
Amid the sometimes-chaotic and hard-to-verify flow of information, opposition lawmakers and Guaido said the first shipment of humanitarian aid had crossed into Venezuela from Brazil — although reports from the ground revealed that two trucks carrying the aid had only inched up to the border itself.
Late Saturday, Guaido tweeted that the day’s events had obliged him to “propose in a formal manner to the international community that we keep all options open to liberate this country which struggles and will keep on struggling.”
___
Henao reported from Urena, Venezuela. AP Writers Joshua Goodman and Scott Smith contributed to this report from Caracas, Venezuela.
Sería el primer sistema de cómputo a exaescala del mundo.
Una computadora capaz de hacer un trillón de cálculos por segundo, es decir: 1000.000.000.000.000.000.
Ese es el ordenador que quiere construir Estados Unidos antes de 2025, el más rápido del mundo, y para ello el presidente Barack Obama firmó este miércoles una orden ejecutiva.
La orden, titulada Creating a National Strategic Computing Initiative (Creación de una iniciativa nacional y estratégica de computación), permitirá unir en un solo organismo los esfuerzos de varios departamentos gubernamentales que llevan años investigando sobre la materia.
El nuevo ente tendrá la tarea de construir el primer sistema de cómputo a exaescala del mundo, un superordenador que pueda realizar 1.000 pentaflops, un trillón de cálculos por segundo.
Esa velocidad de procesamiento es 20 veces superior a la de la computadora más potente de la actualidad, una máquina china, y mil millones de veces superior al de un ordenador personal.
Obama firmó la orden ejecutiva el miércoles.
Y podría revolucionar campos tan variados como la biología molecular o la predicción meteorológica.
Los investigadores de una iniciativa de la Casa Blanca llamada Precision Medicine (Medicina de precisión) aseguran que esa velocidad de procesamiento podría ayudar a crear medicamentos personalizados.
Mientras, el Human Brain Project, una iniciativa de la Comisión Europea para investigar el cerebro humano, considera que permitiría desentrañar los secretos de ese campo.
“Carrera por el liderazgo con China”
En la actualidad Estados Unidos ya tiene supercomputadoras.
EE.UU. ya tiene supercomputadoras.
Es el país del mundo con más ordenadores de ese tipo, según la lista publicada este mes por TOP500, una organización que clasifica el rendimento de estas máquinas.
Las utiliza para un gran número de proyectos de investigación científica y de defensa.
Entre otros, los ingenieros aeroespaciales estadounidenses las usan para hacer modelos de aviones y armas, y los climatólogos para predecir el posible impacto de huracanes y los efectos a largo plazo del cambio climático.
Sin embargo, aunque EE.UU. es el país con más supercomputadoras, no posee la más rápida.
Ese supercomputador está en China, en el Centro de Computación Nacional, en Cantón, en el sur del país. Se llama Tianhe-2 y tiene una capacidad de procesamiento de 33,86 pentaflops, el doble de la máquina estadounidense más rápida, Titan.
El superordenador más potente está hoy en China.
Así, ante la última decisión de Estados Unidos, los expertos ven una clara competencia entre este país y Pekín por el liderazgo tecnológico.
Lea: Las maniobras de EE.UU. para bloquear la supercomputadora china
“Estados Unidos se ha despertado y ha visto que si quiere mantenerse en la carrera (por el liderazgo en el campo de la tecnología) tiene que invertir”, explicó Mark Parsons, del Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) de Edimburgo, Escocia, a la BBC.
Aunque el país lleva años invirtiendo en ello. En 2012 la Administración Obama ya destinó US$126 millones para el desarrollo de la computación a exaescala, seis veces más que el año anterior.
“En el clavo, en términos de estrategia”
Por su parte, Richard Kenway, profesor de física matemática y subdirector de computación de alto rendimiento de la Universidad de Edimburgo cree que el plan de EE.UU. da “en el clavo” en términos de estrategia.
En 2012 la Administración Obama ya destinó US$126 millones para el desarrollo de la computación a exaescala, seis veces más que el año anterior.
“Da en el clavo al unir la ambición de desarrollar un nuevo hardware al de mejorar el Big Data (los sistemas informáticos basados en la acumulación a gran escala de datos y de los procedimientos usados para identificar patrones recurrentes dentro de esos datos)”, señaló a la BBC.
Y al igual que los expertos del proyecto Precision Medicine de la Casa Blanca, Kenway insistió que la computadora podría ayudar a diseñar fármacos a la medida de cada paciente.
Lea también: ¿Puede una supercomputadora diagnosticar mejor que un médico?
“Hoy las medicinas se diseñan para el humano promedio y funcionan bien para algunas personas, pero no para todas”, dijo.
Aunque EE.UU. es el país con más supercomputadoras, no posee la más rápida.
“El verdadero reto es diseñar fármacos para cada individuo, porque ya se puede conocer su genoma y su estilo de vida”.
La supercomputadora también permitiría predecir el clima a largo plazo, señaló Parsons.
Y dará a Estados Unidos una capacidad de investigación mayor que la de cualquier país, incluida China.
Noticias Telemundo announced today it will broadcast the town hall “Latinos Venciendo el Miedo” (Latinos Overcoming Fear), this Sunday, March 19 at 7PM/6 C. Hosted by Noticias Telemundo anchor José Díaz-Balart, the special program will feature the participation of immigrants at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Chicago who will voice their questions and concerns about the implementation of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.
A group of expert panelists, including immigration lawyer and Noticias Telemundo contributor Alma Rosa Nieto and Father Manny Dorantes, will take questions from the audience and offer specific information on how to appropriately deal with the new policies. His eminence Blase J. Cupich, Cardinal and Archbishop of Chicago, will attend the event as a special guest. The town hall also will be available on Noticias Telemundo’s digital properties on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter,NoticiasTelemundo.com and the Noticias Telemundo mobile app.
“We will hear firsthand about the concerns and hopes of Latinos affected by the administration’s new policy on immigration, at a venue with enormous symbolic meaning,” said Díaz-Balart. “We are living at a critical time that could redefine the role of the Hispanic community in our country, and it is important to fight fear and anxiety with reliable information such as the one Noticias Telemundo will offer at this town hall.”
Following “Inmigración, Trump y los Hispanos” (Immigration, Trump and the Hispanic Community), the most watched program on Spanish-language television on the day of its broadcast, the town hall “Latinos Venciendo el Miedo” will be Noticias Telemundo sixth news special produced after the election of President Donald Trump under the banner “Telling It Like It Is” (“Las Cosas Como Son” in Spanish).
In parallel to the news special, “El Poder en Ti,” Telemundo’s robust community initiative will continue to provide information, tools and resources via its new citizenship and immigration site.
CHICAGO — A bitter, biting cold landed on the Midwest, and then it stayed.
As the middle of the nation awoke on Thursday, the deep freeze seemed to have settled in for a long, unwanted visit, disrupting life across an entire region for much of a week, contributing to deaths and injuries, and leaving residents impatient to emerge from their homes and get back to normal.
The grim temperatures and gusty winds lingered in the Midwest, and had spread to the Northeast.
Here are the latest developments:
• Temperatures broke records in some places, and remained low, near record levels, in much of the Midwest on Thursday morning. Minneapolis was minus 23, with a wind chill of minus 38, the National Weather Service said. Chicago was at minus 21, with a wind chill of minus 41. And Milwaukee hit minus 21, with a wind chill of minus 40.
• At least eight deaths have been connected to the Midwest’s dangerously cold weather system, according to The Associated Press, including that of a University of Iowa student who was found behind an academic hall several hours before dawn on Wednesday.
• The sustained cold taxed energy systems across the Midwest, leading to some outages and urgent calls to customers to reduce the heat in their homes.
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