Archives for February 2021

A Biden edge in COVID-19 bill: Dems reluctant to wound him

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic leaders have a potent dynamic on their side as Congress preps for its first votes on the party’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill: Would any Democrat dare cast the vote that scuttles new President Joe Biden’s leadoff initiative?

Democrats’ thin 10-vote House majority leaves little room for defections in the face of solid Republican opposition, and they have none in a 50-50 Senate they control only with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote. Internal Democratic disputes remain over raising the minimum wage, how much aid to funnel to struggling state and local governments and whether to extend emergency unemployment benefits another month.

Yet with the House Budget Committee advancing the 591-page package Monday, Democrats across the party’s spectrum show little indication they’re willing to embarrass Biden with a high-profile defeat a month into his presidency.

Such a setback would deal early blows to Biden, new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and California Democrat Nancy Pelosi in what could be her last term as House speaker. It could also wound congressional Democrats overall by risking repercussions in the 2022 elections if they fail to unite effectively against clear enemies like the pandemic and the frozen economy.

“You think very seriously before casting a deciding vote against your own party’s president’s legislative agenda,” said Ian Russell, a Democratic consultant. But he cautioned that lawmakers must decide “for themselves how their vote is going to play out” at home.

The issue that’s provoked the deepest divisions is a progressive-led drive to boost the federal minimum wage to $15 hourly over five years. The current $7.25 minimum took effect in 2009.

“It was the No. 1 priority for progressives,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in an interview last week. “This is something we’ve run on and something we’ve promised to the American people.”

An overall relief bill, including the minimum wage boost, is expected to clear the House, and likely the Senate as well. But the minimum wage boost’s fate is shaky in the Senate, where Joe Manchin of West Virginia, perhaps the chamber’s most conservative Democrat, has said $15 is too expensive. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., has suggested she might oppose it, too.

More ominously, the Senate parliamentarian is expected to rule soon on whether the minimum wage provision must be tossed from the bill. Under expedited procedures Democrats are using, items that aren’t principally budget-related can’t be included, and it’s unclear if Democrats would have the votes to overturn such a decision.

Yet with every Democrat having leverage because virtually all votes are needed, there have been no overt threats to take the entire bill down unless they get their way.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., his chamber’s chief minimum wage sponsor, said Democrats must “act boldly” and approve a package with the minimum wage increase. He answered indirectly when asked if he’d be willing to compromise to keep the plan in the overall bill.

“Every Democrat understands that at this moment in history, this unprecedented moment of pain and suffering for working families, it is absolutely imperative we support the president, that we do what the American people want and we pass that package,” he said in an interview.

Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., a leading House moderate, also signaled distaste for intractable demands. The pathway to success is to “push as hard as you can to get as much as you can now that you want, not compromise your principles and know that tomorrow’s another day,” he said.

The House Budget Committee advanced the bill Monday by a near party-line 19-16, setting up House passage at perhaps week’s end. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, voted no, but an aide said he misunderstood the vote after disembarking from a plane and supports the measure.

“Aggressive, bold action is needed before our nation is more deeply and permanently scarred,” said Budget Committee Chair John Yarmuth, D-Ky., citing evolving coronavirus strains.

Republicans said the measure’s higher minimum wage and increased unemployment benefits would cost jobs or discourage people from seeking work, and said much of the spending was wasteful.

“This is the wrong plan for America’s working class,” said Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., the budget panel’s top Republican. Across the Capitol, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Democrats were pushing “Band-Aid policies like they’re planning for another year of stagnation, instead of trying to set up success.”

The bill would provide $1,400 payments to millions of low- and middle-income people, increase child tax credits and offer extra $400 weekly federal unemployment benefits through August. It would provide hundreds of billions of dollars for state and local governments, shuttered schools, COVID-19 vaccines and testing, and struggling airlines and other businesses.

History has rich examples of lawmakers who faced pivotal decisions on whether to back priorities of their parties’ presidents, with mixed results.

Three GOP defections in 2017, most famously a post-midnight thumbs-down by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., brought down President Donald Trump’s trademark effort to repeal the Obama-era Affordable Care Act. McCain’s vote sparked unending enmity from Trump. Of the other two, Maine Sen. Susan Collins was reelected last year, and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces reelection in 2022.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton’s $500 billion deficit-reduction plan passed the House by a single vote after first-term Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky agreed to support it. Mezvinsky, who’d previously criticized the measure for insufficient spending cuts, voted “yes” after Clinton called her in the House cloakroom during the vote.

“I told him I knew how important it was and I wouldn’t let it go down, but I said I would only be the tiebreaking vote,” she recalled last week in an interview. She said she told him, “If I pull you over the top, you’ll lose this seat.”

Both scenarios played out.

The package passed 218-216, saved by her decisive vote. And the lawmaker, whose last name is now Margolies following a divorce, lost her reelection two years later from what was a heavily GOP district in Philadelphia’s suburbs. She never returned to Congress.

But one of her children, Marc Mezvinsky, married Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, in 2010.

UAE weapons show draws major deals, traders amid pandemic

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — In spite of the surging coronavirus pandemic, major arms makers descended Sunday on a convention center in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, hoping to make deals with militaries across the Middle East.

The UAE unveiled $1.36 billion in local and foreign arms deals to supply its forces with everything from South African drones to Serbian artillery. Although the figure surpasses the 2019 show’s opening announcement, defense experts anticipate a drop in military spending this year as the pandemic and slumping global oil prices squeeze budgets in the Persian Gulf.

The biennial trade fair, the International Defense Exhibition and Conference, is Abu Dhabi’s first major in-person event since the outbreak of the virus — a sign of its significance to the oil-rich sheikhdom that has maintained tight movement restrictions in recent months. Zoom wouldn’t suffice for the 70,000 attendees and 900 exhibitors who rely on the largest weapons expo in the Mideast to scout for potential clients and hawk their latest wares, from armored vehicles to ballistic missiles.

Top Emirati officials, including Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, were on hand, wandering between displays of rifles, rockets and bombs.

But with hand sanitizer as ubiquitous as sterile drone displays, the pandemic’s effects remained visible. Significant national pavilions were absent, including the United States, the world’s largest arms exporter.

Big American companies turned up but kept a low profile. Lockheed Martin representatives standing beside models of stealth F-35 fighters were tight-lipped amid the Biden administration’s review of several major foreign arms sales initiated by former President Donald Trump, including a massive $23 billion transfer of the F-35s to the UAE.

Israeli COVID restrictions also prevented it from joining the expo, which would have been a first after it normalized relations with the UAE last year. A technician at the Israeli Aerospace Industry booth spent a good portion of the afternoon turning away disappointed potential customers.

But scores of other countries had no qualms showing up during the pandemic, underscoring how many have boosted their arms exports in the region. The flow of weapons in the Middle East has increased by 61% over the past five years, according to a recent report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, amid grinding proxy wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen.

China, which boasts the world’s second-largest arms-manufacturing industry, enticed passers-by with a real-sized ballistic missile called “Fire Dragon.” At state-owned Norinco, business manager Luo Haopeng remarked that China had increased its floor space this year. Beyond his company “serving” Emirati ground forces, he declined to elaborate on its ambitions in the Middle East, where China has already has sold armed drones to Iraq, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

“This kind of equipment is not like food or clothes,” he said, gesturing toward the giant missile display. “It’s all related to politics.”

At Russia’s pavilion, Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov inspected a vast array of Kalashnikovs. Not far off Poland’s WB Group showed glitzy sales videos of its “suicide drone” plummeting from great heights to blast away armored vehicles. Azerbaijan had shown interest in the system during its border conflict with Armenia last year, communications director Marta Lazewska said, when Turkish drones helped turn the tide in its favor.

At the pavilion for Saudi Arabia, ranked the world’s largest weapons importer over the last five years, officials were trying to promote the kingdom as an emerging defense giant under its so-called Vision 2030. The program, pushed by the powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aims to break the country’s import addiction, diversify its economy away from oil and localize more than half of its military spending.

Despite its radar and U.S. Patriot missile batteries, Saudi Arabia increasingly has been at risk of cross-border attack by Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi rebels, which earlier this month launched bomb-laden drones that slammed into an empty passenger plane at the country’s southwestern Abha airport. A Saudi-led military coalition has been at war with the Houthis since 2015, after the rebels ousted the Saudi-backed government from the capital. The conflict has created what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

“The threats are obvious lately,” said Walid Abukhaled, CEO of Saudi Arabian Military Industries Company, a holding company owned by the country’s sovereign wealth fund. “You have drones that coming from aggressive countries … you have some missiles fired every now and then.”

Routine aerial attacks and rising tensions with Iran could help fuel military spending in the region even as defense intelligence provider IHS Janes expects such expenditures in the Gulf to drop 9.4% to $90.6 billion in 2021, a result of the economic destruction wrought by the pandemic.

“We’ve come back to the early part of 2020 where again Iran is a potentially big threat,” said Charles Forrester, senior analyst at Janes, referring to a series of escalating incidents that pushed the U.S. and Iran to the brink of war last year.

“If Iran goes into a major rearmament program or starts to flex its muscles, that’s where missile defense and air defense systems come in,” he said. “As we’ve seen, a very simple system can attack you.”

AP PHOTOS: US pandemic toll: In 1 year, half a million lives

Just one year ago, America had no idea.

Life in February 2020 still felt normal. Concern was building about a mystery respiratory illness that had just been named COVID-19. There was panic buying, and a sense of trepidation. Yet it was tempered by a large dose of American optimism. The coronavirus still felt like a foreign problem, even as U.S. authorities recorded the country’s first known death from the virus.

Precisely a year later, America has surpassed a horrifying milestone of 500,000 deaths from COVID-19.

A relentless march of death and tragedy has warped time and memory. It became easy to forget the shocking images, so many day after day, of scenes once unthinkable in a country of such wealth and power. As the year unfolded, Associated Press photographers formed a pictorial record of suffering, emotion and resilience. It shows the year that changed America.

Looking back, we can see it happened in phases.

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In the beginning, the crisis felt far away.

Last February, Americans still greeted each other with handshakes and commuted to work in crowded public transportation. Children were still at school in actual classrooms. Hollywood icon Tom Hanks walked the red carpet at the Oscars, not knowing a month later he and his wife would contract COVID-19. Baseball spring training drew the usual crowds, without a face mask in sight.

But an ominous cruise ship with COVID-infected passengers circled off the coast of California. Within weeks, the Grand Princess – and the initial efforts by the state and the federal governments to bar it from coming ashore – became a symbol of America’s misguided belief that it could keep the disease out.

Words like shutdown and social distancing were not yet part of our national vocabulary in those early days. Few of us wore masks as we stood in long lines to stockpile groceries and cleared the shelves of toilet paper.

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Heartbreak and despair arrived quickly.

Nightmarish scenes we had witnessed in China and Italy reached America, and the nation snapped to attention. Nursing homes near Seattle became the sites of the first deadly U.S. outbreak. We watched the elderly and frail suffer alone: An octogenarian with COVID-19, stretched out in a hospital bed, blowing her family a kiss through a window.

The World Health Organization declared the crisis a pandemic in March, and everything from college campuses to corporate headquarters cleared out. The NCAA announced that the rite of spring for so many Americans — its college basketball tournament — would be played before largely empty arenas, and then abruptly canceled it.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious disease, became a household name in daily news conferences. When he estimated in March that 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die from the virus, horror was tempered by total disbelief. President Donald Trump touted hydroxychloroquine as a “game changer” but medical experts disagreed.

American hustle and bustle came to a standstill as hotspots exploded across the country. The typically jam-packed Los Angeles freeways emptied into eerie stretches of open road. The lights stayed on in Times Square but its legendary energy and crowds vanished. April felt like Armageddon in New York City; ambulances constantly blared down deserted streets, body bags were forklifted into refrigerated trucks that parked outside hospitals where they served as makeshift morgues and stark symbols of death.

Aerial footage captured by AP showed another unthinkable sight: a mass grave in New York City for unclaimed bodies of COVID-19 victims. Workers in hazmat suits were seen lowering wooden coffins, stacked neatly on top of each other, into deep trenches dug in a potter’s field off the coast of the Bronx.

We marveled at the heroism of healthcare workers and tried to show our gratitude; New Yorkers clapped and cheered and banged pots each night at 7 p.m. to honor those doctors and nurses.

We mourned the nonstop trauma they absorbed on the frontlines.

Afraid and exhausted, they battled to save the sick and vowed not to let victims die alone. Inside hospital rooms, where countless patients had no family to comfort them, the grim task of offering solace fell to the overworked and emotionally drained doctors, nurses and hospital chaplains. Some held back tears as they offered non-stop comfort and prayers. “There’s so much death right now, it piles up on you, it feels heavy,” said a chaplain in Georgia.

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The reality that America had become the global epicenter of modern history’s deadliest pandemic crashed into focus.

Life moved online: everything from work and school to doctors appointments, birthday parties, weddings — and funerals.

It became clear that no one was safe. But some were at far greater risk. Racial disparities in who contracted the virus played out across America as data showed that Black and Latino people were disproportionately affected by the virus and were disproportionately dying of it.

Catching COVID-19 became just one of many concerns as the pandemic shut society, forcing businesses to close and unemployment to skyrocket. Paychecks shrank or disappeared altogether for millions, and harrowing portraits of hunger emerged across the country as Americans lined up at food banks, many for the first time in their lives.

Science mixed with politics, deepening a national divide and adding to the stress of a nation overwhelmed. Protests against racial injustice sent people, most of them wearing masks, into the streets.

Amid the upside-downness of life, we sought normalcy. Restaurants in some places hung their “open” signs and refused to abide by stay-at-home orders, welcoming customers willing to dine inside. Others came up with creative al fresco options. In the parking lot of one California restaurant, a couple brought their own table and even fine china to enjoy Italian takeout.

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Then came some glimmers of hope.

Amid escalating loss, vaccines arrived in mid-December, kicking off the biggest vaccination effort in U.S. history. It felt like the first good news in a doomed year. As doctors and nurses got the first shots, some cheered. Others wept, the constant trauma and sorrow merging with hope in one indescribable cathartic moment.

As vaccine supply picked up — slowly — many of the country’s amusement parks and stadiums, after months vacant, reopened as vaccination mega sites.

Holidays, so often a time of hope, brought more suffering. Empty chairs at family tables were a painful reminder of lost loved ones. Millions of Americans ignored official pleas to avoid travel and gatherings, making the holidays a catalyst for new infections. Surge upon surge of new cases followed Thanksgiving and then Christmas and New Year’s Eve, with each day seemingly setting new records for infections.

As the country and the world bid goodbye, and good riddance, to 2020 it became clear that 2021, at least the early months, would look pretty similar.

Politics shifted with President Joe Biden taking over from Trump. After four years of chaos and controversy, the new president brought a jarring sense of calm to national politics. Still, vaccine delays persist, and it’s not clear if America is winning its war against the virus.

The COVID-19 death toll is not stopping at 500,000, and the virus has mutated countless times, with some variants easier to spread and harder to protect against.

We wonder, what will our new normal look like? Will we ever again swarm through amusement parks or pack into movie theaters or hold huge business conferences or crowd Times Square for the ball drop to mark the end of another year?

The deadliest year in American history has taught us that only time will tell.

Huawei unveils flagship foldable smartphone

BEIJING (AP) — Struggling under U.S. sanctions, Huawei unveiled a folding smartphone with an 8-inch (20-centimeter) -wide screen Monday to show off its tech prowess but said it will be sold only in China.

The Mate X2 highlights the challenges for Huawei Technologies Ltd. after Washington cut off access to U.S. processor chips and Google services. Last year, Huawei fell from the top-selling global smartphone brand to sixth place.

Huawei says the Mate X2, its third folding phone, has crisper visuals and better sound for movies and games. It runs on Huawei’s most advanced processor chip, the Kirin 9000.

The phone offers “a truly immersive experience,” the president of Huawei’s consumer unit, Richard Yu, said at a launch event broadcast online.

Huawei, China’s first global tech brand, was battered by being put on an export blacklist by then-President Donald Trump in 2019 as a security risk, an accusation the company denies. Huawei sold its budget-priced Honor smartphone brand in November to focus resources on higher-end models.

The Mate X2 will start at 17,999 yuan ($2,785), according to Yu.

Monday’s launch “says a lot about how it still wants to trumpet its advances in technology, even if commercially speaking, its shipments will be severely hampered,” said Bryan Ma of IDC in an email.

Executives said earlier Huawei stockpiled chips and other components in preparation for a possible U.S. cutoff. It isn’t clear how long those supplies might last.

Huawei designed the Kirin line that powers its most advanced smartphones but relies on outside manufacturers including Taiwan’s TSMC to make them.

The Trump administration stepped up sanctions last year by blocking TSMC and other global producers from using U.S. technology to make chips for Huawei, including those designed by the company.

Chinese officials accuse Washington of abusing national security complaints to suppress rising technology competitors. Huawei denies accusations it might facilitate Chinese spying.

Without Google music and other services preinstalled, Huawei’s smartphone sales, including Honor, fell 22% last year to 188.5 million, according to Canalys.

Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, said Feb. 9 he didn’t expect new U.S. President Joe Biden to lift Trump’s sanctions but expressed confidence the company can survive. Huawei, headquartered in Shenzhen in southern China, also is the biggest global maker of switching equipment for phone networks.

Huawei’s smartphone unit depends increasingly on its home China market, which accounts for more than 70% of sales, up from 50% in 2019. The loss of Google services had no impact in China, where they aren’t licensed and Huawei already used local alternatives.

China’s ruling Communist Party has spent billions of dollars trying to build its own chip industry. But domestic producers lack the technology to manufacture chips for Huawei’s most advanced products.

“The bigger question is more about how long their current stockpile of components will last them,” said IDC’s Ma.

Huawei has yet to report 2020 sales and profit, but Ren, the founder, said they were better than the previous year. Huawei said revenue for the first nine months of 2020 rose 9.9% to 671.3 billion yuan ($100.4 billion).

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Huawei Technologies Ltd.: www.huawei.com

The Latest: NBA’s Pelicans are increasing maximum attendance

The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world:

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The New Orleans Pelicans are increasing maximum attendance to 2,700 fans beginning Wednesday night when they host the Detroit Pistons.

The Pelicans have been selling nearly 1,500 tickets per game since last month after allowing fewer than 1,000 fans per game to start the season.

The club has been working with local and state government health officials to determine safe attendance policies that are tied to local coronavirus transmission rates.

A considerable recent drop in new area COVID-19 cases has allowed for the increase in attendance.

Fans at Pelicans games are required to wear masks unless eating or drinking, and are asked to socially distance from people who are not in their group. Hand sanitizer dispensers have been placed throughout the 18,000-seat Smoothie King Center.

Pelicans officials say they are hoping to allow as many as 4,000 fans per game later this season.

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Louisville coach Chris Mack says it was “not a good look” for him to be shown in a viral video maskless while celebrating the Cardinals’ Dec. 26 victory over rival Kentucky.

The 33-second video, tweeted Saturday night by Drew Franklin of Kentucky Sports Radio, shows the third-year Louisville coach with former Cardinals football player Eric Wood playfully mocking the 62-59 win during a Christmas party at Mack’s house.

Wood yells in the clip that former Kentucky associate head coach Kenny Payne, now with the NBA’s New York Knicks, was responsible for the Wildcats’ previous victories over the Cardinals before noting he’s gone and that coach John Calipari “will never beat U of L again.”

Mack tried to offer context to the video during a virtual news conference Monday, explaining that some of his neighbors were golfing buddies of Payne and wanted to “give him grief” for the game. The coach also recognized the potential fallout for appearing to go maskless during the pandemic, even in his own home. “I’ve got to do better,” he said.

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The Cleveland Indians could have as many as 10,000 fans at home games in Progressive Field this season after Ohio. Gov. Mike DeWine said it’s likely professional sports teams could accommodate up to 30% capacity at their venues this spring.

The Cincinnati Reds and Columbus Crew would also be affected.

The Indians were not allowed to have fans last season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the loss of revenue for ticket sales, parking and concessions dealt the club an economic blow. The team’s downtown ballpark holds over 35,000.

The Indians have been working with Major League Baseball and the Cleveland Clinic to develop a safety plan to welcome back fans.

The Cleveland Browns and Cavaliers have been permitted to have a limited number of fans at games during the pandemic.

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Iona’s first season under Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino is halted again, this time until the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament.

The Gaels, who recently returned from the longest pause in Division I this season, announced Monday they won’t be able to play their final five conference games because of a positive COVID-19 result by a Tier I member of the program. Subsequent quarantine and isolation protocols left them without the required number of players.

Iona returned from a 51-day pause on Feb. 12 against Manhattan, its first game since Dec. 23. That was supposed to begin a stretch of 10 games in 22 days before the MAAC Tournament in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Pitino said he had tested positive during the previous pause, estimating that about half the team has had the coronavirus this season. Iona hired the winner of national championships at Kentucky and Louisville last March, during an outbreak of the virus in Iona’s city of New Rochelle, New York.

The Gaels swept Monmouth over the weekend and were scheduled to play Marist on Wednesday.

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Julius “Dr. J” Erving is the latest NBA legend to reveal that he’s gotten vaccinated against the coronavirus, doing so Monday. Much like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Gregg Popovich and Bill Russell before him, Erving made the announcement in the form of a video distributed through the league.

“We were never afraid to take the big shot,” Erving said in the video.

Erving turned 71 on Monday, meaning he is well within the current age guidelines for vaccine eligibility as established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The video he appears in also includes short clips of Jerry West, Dave Bing and Wayne Embry receiving their vaccinations.

The league has released these videos in an effort to help encourage the public to receive the vaccine when they are eligible and it is available in their community.

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Fans will be allowed to attend sports and entertainment events at New Jersey’s largest facilities in limited numbers starting next week, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday.

New Jersey venues with an indoor seating capacity of 5,000 or more will be allowed to have 10% of those seats occupied by fans starting on March 1, the Democratic governor said on the WFAN sports radio station.

For outdoor venues with over 5,000 seats, the number will be 15% of capacity.

Murphy said he decided to allow the limited in-person attendance after reviewing a vast array of coronavirus-related statistics, including hospitalizations, the number of hospital admissions versus discharges, overall positivity rate for COVID-19 and the rate of transmission, and determining that small crowds can be permitted safely.

He said face coverings and social distancing will be required at these venues.

“If you buy tickets together, you can sit together, but otherwise, we have to spread apart,” he said.

The order applies to the state’s major arenas, including the Prudential Center in Newark, where the NHL’s New Jersey Devils play, and outdoor stadiums, including MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, home to the NFL’s New York Giants and Jets.

The governor said about 1,700 to 1,800 fans should be allowed to attend Devils hockey games under the new rules.

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More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Archives for February 2021

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