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Your Blend of Morning News and Coffee.
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Open Daily Thread. Post any stories you like.
Friday, December 25, 2020
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Donald Trump Pardons Former K-9 Officer Who Set Police Dog on Homeless Suspect Who'd Surrendered
President Donald Trump issued pardons to more than two dozen people this week, and among them was a former K-9 police officer who served a decade in prison after she released her police dog on a homeless suspect after he surrendered, resulting in a leg wound that required stitches.
Stephanie Mohr, a canine handler for the Prince George’s County Police Department in Maryland, received a full pardon on Wednesday from Trump, 25 years after her crime.
“She served 10 years in prison for releasing her K-9 partner on a burglary suspect in 1995, resulting in a bite wound requiring ten stitches,” the White House said in a statement. “Officer Mohr was a highly commended member of the police force prior to her prosecution. Today’s action recognizes that service and the lengthy term that Ms. Mohr served in prison.”
Mohr was convicted by a federal jury in 2001 of violating the man’s civil rights, as she set her dog on him after he surrendered, according to the Associated Press and the Washington Post.
The conviction came as the Prince George’s County Police Department faced an investigation by the Justice Department, as well as multiple lawsuits alleging police brutality, the Post reported.
Rural community reflects Black American unease, challenges with COVID-19 vaccines
"If [the vaccine] came out today, I would not take it," said Lonzo Bullie, a retired school principal who has called Tuskegee, Alabama, home for 26 years. "I'm still reluctant … because I do not have enough information on it."
The two FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines are more than 95% effective at preventing symptomatic illness, and side effects reported are minor. The trials -- which included more than 30,000 volunteers each -- demonstrated that the vaccines work equally well among people of all races and ethnicities.
But Bullie, who's also president of the Tuskegee-Macon County branch of the NAACP, said that skepticism about the vaccine within the African American community stems from "the history of the United States government experimenting on Black people" and years of "mistreatment."
Tuskegee, where Bullie resides, is ground zero for the infamous 1930s syphilis study. The U.S. Public Health study at the Tuskegee Institute, which recruited 600 Black men, was meant to record the natural progression of syphilis infection, but the researchers did not inform the participants nor did they ask for their consent. The study lasted 40 years and left an indelible mark on the Black community.
Santa’s ‘grandchildren’ spread joy in Italian nursing homes
ALZANO LOMBARDO, Italy (AP) — Emotions are running high this holiday season at the Martino Zanchi Foundation nursing home in northern Italy near Bergamo after months of near-total isolation for its residents.
Long-time resident Celestina Comotti was disbelieving as a staff member read aloud a Christmas greeting from a family peering at her expectantly over a video call.
“Damn!” Comotti exclaimed when nursing home staff confirmed that her well-wishers - 9-year-old Simon, his sister Marta and mother Alessia - were people she had never met before. The 81-year-old woman dissolved into tears.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
California desperately searches for more nurses and doctors
A cardiac intensive care nurse from Washington, D.C., with expertise in heart rhythm, airway and pain management, her skills are in great demand as infections and hospitalizations skyrocket nationwide. Houze is among more than 500 nurses, doctors and other medical staff California has brought in and deployed to hospitals that are running out of capacity to treat the most severe COVID-19 cases.
Her six-week assignment started Monday in San Bernardino, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, and she anticipates working 14-hour shifts with a higher-than-usual caseload. San Bernardino County has 1,545 people in hospitals and more than 125 are in makeshift “surge" beds, which are being used because regular hospital space isn't available.
“I expect patients to die. That’s been my experience: they die, I put them in body bags, the room gets cleaned and then another patient comes,” Houze said.
Monday, December 21, 2020
Vatican: OK to get virus vaccines using abortion cell lines
VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican on Monday declared that it is “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines based on research that used fetal tissue from abortions.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's watchdog office for doctrinal orthodoxy, said it addressed the question after receiving several requests for “guidance” during recent months. The doctrine office noted that bishops, Catholic groups and experts have offered “diverse and sometimes conflicting pronouncements” on the matter.
Drawing on Vatican pronouncements in past years about developing vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted fetuses, the watchdog office issued a statement it said Pope Francis had examined last week and ordered to be made public.
The Catholic Church’s teaching says that abortion is a grave sin.
The Vatican concluded that “it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses” in the research and production process when “ethically irreproachable” vaccines aren’t available to the public. But it stressed that the “licit” uses of such vaccines “does not and should not in any way imply that there is a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted fetuses."
Sunday, December 20, 2020
Lawmakers reach COVID-19 relief deal
Top congressional lawmakers announced a roughly $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill on Sunday, just hours ahead of a government shutdown deadline -- a deal nearly nine months in the making.
"Moments ago, the four leaders of the Senate and the House finalized an agreement. It will be another major rescue package for the American people," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the floor Sunday night. "For the information of all Senators and more importantly for the American people, we can finally report what our nation has needed to hear for a very long time: more help is on the way."
"As our citizens continue battling this coronavirus this holiday season, they will not be fighting alone," McConnell said. "Now we need to promptly finalize the text, avoid any last-minute obstacles and cooperate to move this legislation through both chambers."
House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer informed the caucus that they will vote on a one-day stopgap funding bill Sunday night in order to avert a government shutdown, per Democratic aides.
A final vote on the spending bill and COVID-19 relief bill will be on Monday in the House, before it heads to the Senate.
Saturday, December 19, 2020
McDonald's China releasing Oreo, Spam burger for limited time
Here’s a mash-up nobody asked for.
McDonald’s will be releasing a Spam burger topped with Oreos in China next week.
The fast food chain announced the limited-time menu item on Chinese social media platform Weibo earlier this week.
On Friday, video game analyst Daniel Ahmad tweeted pictures of the "Oreo x Spam" burger, which shows a layer of crumbled Oreos on top of two slices of Spam.
Friday, December 18, 2020
Trump has discussed rebooting 'The Apprentice' as he prepares to leave the White House, according to a report
President Trump has told aides that he is open to reviving 'The Apprentice,' according to a report.
Trump has privately floated the idea of rebooting the reality TV show, The Daily Beast report, in the latest indication hat he has accepted his defeat to Joe Biden more than he has publicly acknowledged.
He reportedly asked aides questions like "How would you like to see The Apprentice come back?" and "Remember The Apprentice?"
The outgoing president continues to claim without evidence that widespread voter fraud cost him the November election.
Trump's move to his Florida estate challenged by neighbor
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- President Donald Trump's expected move to his Mar-a-Lago club after he leaves office next month is being challenged by a lawyer who says a 1990s agreement allowing Trump to convert the Florida property into a business prohibits anyone from living there, including him.
Attorney Reginald Stambaugh sent a letter this week to the Town of Palm Beach saying he represents a neighbor who doesn't want the president to take up residence at the 17-acre property because it would decrease the area's property values. He also asserts that a microwave security barrier operated by the Secret Service is harming his client, who he says is exhibiting symptoms of microwave exposure. He did not give the client's name.
The president and first lady Melania Trump changed their legal residence from New York City to Palm Beach last year. Stambaugh says that violates the 1993 agreement between Trump and the town that allowed him to turn Mar-a-Lago from a private home into a club that has 10 guest rooms for rent.
Monday, December 14, 2020
Venezuela wields a powerful “hate” law to silence Maduro’s remaining foes
SAN JOSÉ DE GUANIPA, Venezuela–Francisco Belisario, a Venezuelan mayor, retired general and member of the ruling Socialist party, had enough. His loudest local critic had accused him of bungling the response to the coronavirus outbreak and other big problems.
In August, he wrote a state prosecutor and requested an “exhaustive investigation” of his nemesis, Giovanni Urbaneja, a former lawmaker who had become a gadfly to the mayor and other Socialist officeholders. Urbaneja, Belisario wrote in a letter reviewed by Reuters, was conducting a “ferocious smear campaign” on Facebook and elsewhere.
Urbaneja not only defamed him and President Nicolás Maduro, the mayor wrote. He violated Venezuela’s Law Against Hate. The law, passed in 2017 but rarely used before this year, criminalizes actions that “incite hatred” against a person or group. Charge Urbaneja with hate crimes, the mayor implored the prosecutor.
Attorney General William Barr is leaving the Trump administration
Attorney General William Barr, who has served as President Donald Trump's most effective shield and advocate for broad presidential authority, will be leaving the administration.
Trump announced the news of Barr's departure Monday evening on Twitter.
Trump lauded his attorney general as "a man of unbelievable credibility and courage" just months ago, but turned on Barr after he declared there was no widespread evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and resisted Trump's public pressure to prosecute President-elect Joe Biden and other former Obama administration officials on baseless claims of corruption and the surveillance of the 2016 race.
“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr told the Associated Press on Dec. 1, even as Trump continues to pursue legal challenges to an election he has yet to concede.
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Kizzmekia Corbett, an African American woman, is praised as key scientist behind COVID-19 vaccine
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and a constant presence on TV during the coronavirus pandemic, was asked a blunt question during a forum hosted last week by the National Urban League: "Can you talk about the input of African American scientists in the vaccine process?"
Fauci did not hesitate when giving his answer.
"The very vaccine that's one of the two that has absolutely exquisite levels -- 94 to 95% efficacy against clinical disease and almost 100% efficacy against serious disease that are shown to be clearly safe -- that vaccine was actually developed in my institute's vaccine research center by a team of scientists led by Dr. Barney Graham and his close colleague, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, or Kizzy Corbett," Fauci told the forum. "Kizzy is an African American scientist who is right at the forefront of the development of the vaccine."
4 stabbed in skirmishes at DC protests, while 1 person shot at clashes in Washington state
Violent clashes between pro-Donald Trump protesters and Black Lives Matter supporters on both sides of the country ended in bloodshed on Saturday.
In Washington, D.C., four people were stabbed as violence escalated Saturday night following competing protests during the day. The president's supporters, including the far-right Proud Boys, had gathered in the afternoon to denounce the results of the 2020 election -- baselessly decried as fraudulent for weeks by Trump.
Meanwhile, across the country in Olympia, Washington, a person was shot during similar protests on Saturday.
A person was taken into custody there.
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Supreme Court denies bid by Texas, Trump to overturn 2020 election
The U.S. Supreme Court late Friday officially put to rest a brazen eleventh-hour attempt by the state of Texas and Republican allies of President Donald Trump to throw out millions of votes in four states and overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
In an unsigned, single-page order, the court rejected a lawsuit brought by Texas, citing a lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. In dismissing the case, the court said Texas had no "cognizable interest" in how Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia conduct their own elections.
The decision, coming just three days before the Electoral College meets to finalize the presidential selection, shut down what Trump had called "perhaps the most important case in history" without the justices getting into the merits of arguments on either side.
Justice Samuel Alito, in a brief statement joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, said he believed the court should have taken up the case because disputes between states can originate at the high court, but he added that he "would not grant other relief."
"I express no view on any other issue," Alito wrote.
Marine vet whose legs were blown off in Iraq now is only 2nd double amputee police officer in US
A Marine veteran from Texas who had his legs blown off by a roadside bomb in Iraq has become only the second double amputee police officer in the United States.
The inspiring story belongs to Zach Briseno, 35, of Fort Worth, who refused to let the loss of his legs prevent him from achieving his dream of becoming a cop when he grew up.
The Fort Worth Police Department on Friday held a ceremony to swear in 24 new police officers, including Briseno.
“You can do anything you want to do, you just really have to put the work in for it,” he says in a video the Fort Worth Police Department posted on Twitter.
Briseno, who enlisted in the Marines after high school, was injured in 2007 in Iraq's Fallujah Province as he and other Marines were sitting in an armored vehicle that drove over a command-detonated improvised explosive device.
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Search for lizard food leads to $200,000 lottery prize
Dec. 10 (UPI) -- A Virginia couple said their pet lizard's appetite turned out to be lucky when the search for a snack led to a $200,000 lottery jackpot.
Charlene Goad of Bassett told Virginia Lottery officials she and her husband went out on an errand to find some worms for their pet lizard, George, and her husband went into the first store they tried to find the reptile's preferred snack food.
Goad said her husband discovered the store, Fas Mart in Bassett, was out of worms, but he decided to buy four Jewel 7s scratch-off lottery tickets.
"He said the green seven just kept popping out at him," Goad recalled.
The man brought the tickets back to the car, where Goad scratched them while her husband drove.
Finder Of Treasure Chest Hidden In Rocky Mountains Reveals His Identity
The man who found a buried chest that had enraptured scores of treasure hunters for a decade has revealed his identity. His name is Jack Stuef, and in June, he found the treasure famously buried by author and retired art dealer Forrest Fenn somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, with a poem from Fenn's memoir, The Thrill of the Chase, offering clues to its location.
Fenn announced in June that the treasure had been found — but he wouldn't say where exactly it was found or who found it. And in July, to provide some "closure" to those who had searched in other states, Fenn revealed that the chest had been hidden in Wyoming. Over the course of the hunt, at least four people died searching throughout the Rockies for the trove, which Fenn said contained about $2 million worth of gold and precious gems.
Stuef, in a post on Medium, says he had asked for his identity to be kept secret so that he wouldn't invite the same fate that Fenn and his family dealt with amid fervent treasure hunters.
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
Mysterious Tower Of Missing Trump Votes Appears In Utah Desert
UTAH DESERT—Scientists and conspiracy theorists are baffled after a strange monolith-shaped stack of missing Trump votes was discovered without explanation in the middle of the Utah desert.
"RIGGED ELECTION!" tweeted Donald Trump after seeing the news on his Twitter feed. "They found my missing votes! There must be 10 million in that stack alone!"
Scientists insist Trump's allegations are "baseless" and that the strange stack of mail-in votes for Trump is more likely the result of an artist's work or perhaps an alien visitor.
Rudy Giuliani was last seen rappelling down the side of a nearby cliff face to examine the stack of ballots with a flashlight and a magnifying glass. He has announced to the press that by the time he's done examining all the ballots by himself, Trump will be revealed to be the clear winner in all 50 states.
AOC hits back at Joe Manchin as feud between the two Democrats escalates
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to Sen. Joe Manchin after he said the New York Democrat focuses on tweeting more than “anything else,” amid a feud over defunding the police.
“I find it amusing when politicians try to diminish the seriousness of our policy work, movement organizing & grassroots fundraising to 'she just tweets,' as though 'serious' politics is only done by begging corporate CEOs for money through wax-sealed envelopes delivered by raven,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Tuesday evening.
The response comes after Manchin, who is also a Democrat, told the New York Times this week that he has “never met” Ocasio-Cortez and said she focuses on being “more active on Twitter than anything else.”
“I guess she put the dagger stare on me,” Manchin told the New York Times. “I don’t know the young lady — I really don’t. I never met her. I’m understanding she’s not that active with her bills or in committee. She’s more active on Twitter than anything else.”
The feud between the two Democrats began last month after Manchin tweeted he did not support defunding the police.
Tuesday, December 1, 2020
In Search of Alaska’s Deadliest Catch: The Sea Cucumber
Hunter Mann-Dempster, professional sea cucumber diver, lives on Baranof Island in a house built on cedar pilings, a short ramble to the ocean through a copse of spruce and hemlock. He greets us in long underwear, mug of coffee in hand. Over the years I've come to notice divers in the Great North appear anemic, as if the cold has trimmed fat from their bones. Hunter is no exception. Like a medieval squire readying armor for battle, he lays out hoods, gloves, and dry suits over the lid of his hot tub. It's February. The water is in the 40s.
Hunter dips his head into a neoprene hood, cleans the glass of his face mask. Perhaps we'd have some luck, he wonders, across Eastern Channel at Pirate's Cove? "The otters have been kind of bad, so it might be good to find a place with some current," he says. Farther north, in Peril Strait? To make that work we'd need another 5-gallon jug of gasoline for the boat. If the weather held we'd make it back in time to cook the creatures on the Adak, my World War II tugboat tied up in the channel. But what I'm really thinking about now is a postdive dip in Hunter's hot tub. I know it gets up to, like, 104 degrees, warm enough to melt the ice cubes we will surely become while chasing sea cucumbers.
FDA loosens restrictions on gay and bisexual men, encourages blood donations amid coronavirus crisis
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said it would loosen some of the restrictions that have blocked gay and bisexual men from donating blood.
The agency is changing the recommended deferral period for men who have had sex with another man from 12 months to three months. Restrictions on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, and other groups considered to be high risk for HIV or AIDS transmission, date back to the 1980's.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams called the FDA decision "tremendous" and potentially life-saving at a time when overall blood donations have fallen and hospitals face critical shortages as people stay home and blood drives are canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
"It is critically important we have rationally and scientifically based blood donation deferral periods," Adams said on a call with reporters. "In particular, we know that reducing the deferral period for men who have sex with men can significantly increase life-saving blood donations, prevent drug shortages and help reduce harmful stigma experienced by the MSM community."
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