Month: September 2020

Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, are set to debate Tuesday night, five weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 election, in the first of three planned face-to-face encounters over the next month.  The high-stakes event in the midwestern city of Cleveland, Ohio, comes as Biden has maintained about a 7-percentage-point advantage over Trump for weeks in national polls, threatening to make Trump the third U.S. president in the past four decades to lose reelection for a second four-year term in the White House.  However, the race is closer in several key battleground states, which raises the possibility that Trump could once again lose the popular vote — as he did against Democrat Hillary Clinton  in 2016 — and still win more of the all-important state electors to claim victory. There are estimates that 100 million Americans will watch the two presidential contenders square off for 90 minutes in the widely televised and livestreamed event, facing questions from Fox News journalist Chris Wallace, as about 100 people watch in person. Until now, the candidates have not appeared together.FILE – This combination of file photos shows President Donald Trump, left, speaking to the media in Washington on March 3, 2020, and Democratic presidential hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden at a Nevada Caucus watch party on Feb. 22, 2020. Wallace said he will pose questions on six topics in 15-minute segments: the candidates’ records; the coronavirus pandemic that has killed a world-leading 204,000 people in the U.S.; Trump’s nomination of conservative jurist Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court; the U.S. economy that has been buffeted by the pandemic; the integrity of the election; and “race and violence” in U.S. cities. One late-breaking topic is also sure to be a focal point — a New York Times report on Sunday that the billionaire Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he ran for the presidency, and in 2017, his first year in office. The report detailed how Trump, who has often boasted of his business savvy, has written off hundreds of millions of dollars in business losses. Trump called the report “totally fake news,” but the Biden campaign on Sunday highlighted it to advance its contention that Trump is out of touch with U.S. workers he claims to be fighting for. The Biden campaign started airing an ad showing that a typical elementary school teacher, a firefighter, a construction manager and a registered nurse all pay thousands of dollars in taxes a year while Trump paid $750. Debates in past presidential campaigns have occasionally proved crucial to the outcome, but whether that is the case this year is open to question. Opinion surveys show that more than 90% of voters say they have already made up their minds and have no intention of changing their choice. Early voting has started in many states, occasionally with long lines of people waiting to cast their ballots. Millions more have requested or been sent mail-in ballots to avoid meeting face-to-face with other voters on Election Day amid the coronavirus pandemic. Trump has claimed, without evidence, that the sharp increase in mail-in voting this year will lead to a “rigged” election against him, and he refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power at January’s presidential inauguration if Biden wins. FILE – Fox News’ Chris Wallace moderates the third and final 2016 presidential campaign debate between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at UNLV in Las Vegas, Oct. 19, 2016.The topics picked by Wallace for the debate reflect the news of the day in the United States, although critics say that Wallace’s description of race and violence in the U.S. mirrors Trump’s contention that protests over police abuse of minorities in recent months have been led by “thugs,” rioters and anarchists.  Democrats supporting Biden say instead, the discussion should be about systemic racism in the U.S. and the country’s national reckoning over race relations brought to the fore by the May death of a Black man, George Floyd, while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the deaths of other Black people at the hands of police.   Ahead of their encounter, Trump has questioned Biden’s mental acuity and sought to diminish Biden’s skill as a debater, claiming, without evidence, that the Democrat must have been drugged when his debate performance improved as the large field of Democratic presidential contenders was winnowed to a single opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, before Sanders conceded to Biden.   “I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night,’ Trump said on Twitter. “Naturally, I will agree to take one also. His Debate performances have been record setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy???”The Biden campaign retorted, “Vice President Biden intends to deliver his debate answers in words. If the president thinks his best case is made in urine, he can have at it.” Trump tweeted back, “Joe Biden just announced that he will not agree to a Drug Test. Gee, I wonder why?”  Dos and don’ts Aaron Kall, the debate coach at the University of Michigan and co-author of the book “Debating the Donald,” said that even with perhaps fewer undecided voters than in past presidential election years, the two candidates need to exhibit a certain competency for voters.  Biden, now 77, served for 36 years in the U.S. Senate and eight as vice president under former President Barack Obama. Kall said Biden “needs to reassure undecided voters that he’s up physically and mentally to the task of being president, and holding your own with the incumbent president for 90 minutes is an excellent way to do this.” “Biden needs to contrast his experience, agenda and vision for the future with President Trump,” Kall said. Meanwhile, Kall said, Trump, at 74, “needs to make the case for why he should be reelected and deserves another four years in office. The economy is generally viewed as his biggest strength in opinion polls, and he must have a detailed plan to decrease unemployment and increase economic growth.”  With the latest phase of coronavirus spending in Congress stalled, Trump should make his specific vision for that be known, according to Kall. Moreover, while health care is not one of the six topics for the first debate, Trump “should be able to articulate his desired replacement for the Affordable Care Act, since this will likely come up during the Supreme Court section” of the debate, Kall said.  The debate coach said Trump “is hoping that Biden will make a major disqualifying error, but relying upon your opponent to make a mistake is not a sound debate strategy.”  Trump often exaggerates claims about the news of the day, but Kall said Biden “needs to pick his battles regarding President Trump’s falsehoods, since they aren’t all created equal, and there will likely be many of them.”  “It’s impossible to let some things go,” Kall said, “but Biden can’t spend the majority of his precious speaking time on the defensive and correcting President Trump. Biden has publicly stated that he intends to fact-check President Trump in real-time, but that would be a mistake.”He advised Trump against questioning Biden’s mental fitness for the presidency. “These accusations by President Trump prior to the debate have already decreased expectations for Biden and made the incumbent’s debate task even that much harder,” Kall said.   “President Trump has generally been successful at turning his political opponents into caricatures, but it’s much more difficult to do this when someone else is sharing the stage with you,” Kall said. “President Trump would be better off attacking the Obama-Biden record, while contrasting it with his last four years in office.” 
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U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Monday that Democratic lawmakers unveiled a new, $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, which she said was a compromise measure that reduces the costs of the economic aid. In a letter to Democratic lawmakers released by Pelosi’s office, she said the legislation “includes new funding needed to avert catastrophe for schools, small businesses, restaurants, performance spaces, airline workers and others.” “Democrats are making good on our promise to compromise with this updated bill,” she said. “We have been able to make critical additions and reduce the cost of the bill by shortening the time covered for now.” Pelosi in recent days has said she thinks a deal can be reached with the White House on a new coronavirus relief package and that talks were continuing. But she also said that she would offer legislation if the impasse continued with the Trump administration over the size and shape of another relief package. She did not say when there would be a vote on the latest Democratic proposal. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, left, walk to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Aug. 5, 2020.Formal talks among Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows aimed at hammering out a relief package broke down on Aug. 7 with the two sides far apart. Pelosi and Mnuchin spoke by phone on Sunday and again on Monday. They plan to speak again on Tuesday morning, her spokesman said. Pelosi and Schumer initially sought a $3.4 trillion relief package, then said they were willing to scale that back by at least a trillion dollars. But it was not clear whether the White House would consider the $2.2 trillion sum proposed in the new legislation. Meadows has said that Trump would be willing to sign a $1.3 trillion relief package. Pelosi also faces pressure from moderate House Democrats who say they want to see bipartisan aid proposals that have a chance of becoming law. The new proposal included $436 billion for state and local governments, as well as money for education, testing, airline industry workers and for a small business loan program known as the Paycheck Protection Program, a statement from House Democrats said. It would also provide a new round of direct payments to Americans of $1,200 per taxpayer and restore federal unemployment benefits of $600 a week through January. 
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The World Health organization says 120 million rapid diagnostic tests for the coronavirus will be made available to low- and middle-income countries as the world approaches a death toll of 1 million. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva on Monday that the tests would cost less than $5.  He said manufacturers Abbott and SD Biosensor are working in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “make 120 million of these new, highly portable and easy-to-use rapid COVID-19 diagnostic tests available over a period of six months.” COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported Monday that there were close to 1 million deaths worldwide. It said there are more than 33 million infections around the globe.  In India, the country’s confirmed coronavirus infection tally reached 6 million Monday, behind only the United States, where infections passed 7 million last week. India’s Health Ministry on Monday reported 82,170 new coronavirus cases over a 24-hour period, as well as 1,039 new confirmed deaths, taking total fatalities in the country to 95,542.  Surge expected in USIn the United States, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told NBC, “We’re nowhere near the end” of the coronavirus pandemic.FILE – Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a hearing on the federal government response to COVID-19, Capitol Hill, Washington, Sept. 23, 2020.Redfield also repeated his argument that wearing a mask can be just as effective as a vaccine. “If every one of us did it, this pandemic would be over in eight to 12 weeks,” Redfield said. A CNN investigation of Johns Hopkins data reveals the number of cases has increased by at least 10% from the previous week in 21 U.S. states.   Dr. Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, told CNN an expected “huge surge” in coronavirus infections in October in the United States is also expected to continue in November and December.   European countries debate next stepsMeanwhile, Europe is experiencing a new wave of coronavirus infections, leading some governments across the continent to reimpose restrictions on residents and businesses.FILE – A sign is placed across a closed road in London, Sept. 24, 2020, after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a range of new restrictions to combat the rise in coronavirus cases in England.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is warning that his country could see a “second wave.” He said Sunday that “swift and decisive action” must be taken to battle the virus.  Britain reported 4,044 new cases on Monday. The number of confirmed cases in the country now stands at more than 437,000, according to Johns Hopkins. In France, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the government has no plan to order a new nationwide lockdown, despite a rising number of coronavirus cases.  Patrick Bouet, head of France’s National Council of the Order of Doctors, told Journal du Dimanche Sunday “if nothing changes, France will face a widespread outbreak across its whole territory for several long autumn and winter months,” and the health system would crumble under the demands.    In Spain, Madrid authorities and the national government are clashing over the extent of the steps needed to control the outbreak of new infections in the capital region.  Spain’s Health Ministry Monday reported 31,785 new cases since Friday. 
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Violent crime in the United States decreased in 2019, according to FBI statistics released today.Compared to 2018, violent crime fell 0.5%, according to an FBI news release. Property crime also fell by 4.1%, marking the 17th straight year of declines, the FBI said.In 2019, there were 366.7 violent crimes per 100,000 people and 2,109.9 property crimes per 100,000 people.A deeper look at the data reveals some types of violent crimes did increase.  Aggravated assault rose by 1.3% from 2018, and murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rose 0.3%. Robberies were down 4.7%.The FBI said there were 6,925,677 property crimes in the U.S. in 2019. Burglaries dropped 9.5% compared to 2018, and motor vehicle theft fell 4%. The FBI estimates the total cost of property crimes, excluding arson, was $15.8 billion in 2019.During 2019, there were 10.1 million arrests, excluding traffic violations.The FBI statistics were compiled using data from law enforcement agencies voluntarily participating in the agency’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. The FBI said that 18,667 federal, state, county, city, university and college and tribal agencies are eligible to participate in the UCR Program, and 16,554 of those agencies submitted data.
 
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Nearly four years after then-presidential candidate Donald Trump first faced questions about his income tax returns, the issue has returned to the forefront of the 2020 election as Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden prepare for their first debate Tuesday night. The New York Times Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden gives a speech on the Supreme Court at The Queen Theater, Sept. 27, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.Biden did not make any public comment about Trump’s taxes Sunday, but like Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, the former Vice President has challenged Trump to make his tax returns public.In July, Biden wrote, “The American people deserve to know what Donald Trump is hiding in his tax returns.”Biden, who served as vice president for eight years and has made his tax returns  public, has on his campaign website copies of his state and federal returns from 2016, 2017 and 2018.FILE – U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a statement late Sunday saying the Times report shows the need for lawmakers to be allowed access to Trump’s taxes for an oversight audit, and highlighted a provision in a bill the House passed last year that would make presidential disclosures of their personal and business tax returns mandatory.  The measure was referred to the Senate Finance Committee with no further action.Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican, said in response to the legislation last year that House Democrats were seeking Trump’s tax information for political purposes and should leave auditing responsibilities to the IRS.“What they are interested in is using their oversight authority to collect as much information about this President’s finances as they can get their hands on,” Grassley said.A list of debate topics released last week ahead of Tuesday’s presidential debate did not include any specific mention of the tax issue, but given its history in recent elections the Times reporting makes its inclusion in Tuesday’s event likely.
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A wind-driven wildfire erupted on Sunday in the heart of northern California’s Napa Valley wine country to spread across nearly 809 hectares, forcing the evacuation of a hospital and hundreds of homes, authorities said. Fire crews were out in force, scrambling to fend off flames threatening neighborhoods and vineyards at the northern end of the famed wine-growing valley and surrounding hillsides, about 120 kilometers north of San Francisco. The blaze, dubbed the Glass Fire, broke out before dawn near Calistoga and raced toward the adjacent communities of Deer Park and St. Helena, with flames reaching within a mile of the Adventist Health St. Helena hospital. All 55 patients there at the time were safely evacuated by ambulance and helicopter over the course of five hours from about 7 a.m., hospital spokeswoman Linda Williams told Reuters.  “We had ambulances lined up from all over the Bay area,” she said, adding that although smoke shrouded the facility, the skies above were clear enough for helicopters’ airlift efforts. It was the second wildfire-related evacuation of the 151-bed hospital in a month, after a massive cluster of lightning-sparked blazes that swept several counties north of the San Francisco Bay region in August. Authorities ordered about 600 homes evacuated on Sunday, with residents of 1,400 more warned to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice, said Tyree Zander, a spokesman for the state’s forestry and fire protection department (CalFire). The notices affected at least 5,000 people, he added. By evening, flames stoked by winds gusting up to 80 kph had scorched about 728 hectares of grassy rolling hillsides and oak woodlands, with little or no containment, Zander said.   Fire at harvest timeThe cause of the fire is being investigated. There were no immediate reports of injuries, but a Reuters photographer in St. Helena saw some structures that had been burned. The blaze erupted midway through the traditional grape-harvesting period in the Napa Valley, world renowned as one of California’s premiere wine-producing regions. The area’s 475 wineries account for just 4% of the state’s total annual grape harvest but half of the retail value of all California wines sold, according to the Napa Valley Vintners trade group. Of Napa’s 16 wine-growing districts, or sub-appellations, the Howell Mountain area may have faced the greatest threat, said Lisa Covey, a spokeswoman for Hall Family Wines, which kept open during the day all its three tasting rooms in the county. Napa and other wine-growing regions have been hit by wildfires in and around the Bay area for several years. Susan Krausz, co-owner of Arkenstone Estate Vineyards in the Howell Mountain community of Angwin, said it would take days or weeks to assess the impact of the latest blaze on valley vintners. “Most people have harvested,” she said, but added, “Any time’s a bad time for a fire.” Tom Kaljian, 78, a realtor who owns a house about halfway between Calistoga and St. Helena, defied evacuation orders to spend the day with his wife hosing down their home and dry brush along a fence line separating their property from the Silverado Trail, a key north-south roadway. “We were told to get out of here, but I was trying to protect our little abode, so we stayed,” he told Reuters by telephone. After firefighters told him the house was no longer in danger, he added, “I stopped watering at that point, and came in and took a nap.” The Glass Fire came as the Pacific Gas and Electric Company said it was temporarily halting power to transmission lines in parts of 16 counties across northern and central California to guard against greater wildfire risks in hot, windy, dry weather. The public safety power shutoffs were expected to affect about 65,000 regional homes and businesses, said PG&E, the state’s largest electric utility. A red flag warning for extreme wildfire risks for Napa Valley would run through Monday morning, Zander said. CalFire said a fire weather watch would start on Monday across much of Southern California, following the forecast return of hot, gusty Santa Ana winds and low humidity. California wildfires have scorched more than 1.5 million hectares in the first nine months of 2020, far exceeding any single year in state history, killing 26 people and destroying more than 7,000 structures. 
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The United States is threatening to close its embassy in Baghdad amid frustrations over attacks by Shi’ite militias. News organizations quoted U.S. and Iraqi officials Sunday as saying U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Iraqi leaders in recent days that the embassy would close unless Iraq worked to stop attacks on U.S. military and diplomatic sites. Pompeo has not discussed the matter publicly, but the State Department said Sunday that “Iran-backed groups launching rockets at our embassy are a danger not only to us, but to the Government of Iraq.” The United States has demanded Iraqi action before, saying in January that Iraq has an obligation to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities in the country. That message came weeks after the U.S. military responded to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq with an airstrike that killed Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, and senior Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, outside the Baghdad airport. The strike sparked a round of protests in Iraq, with demonstrators, and several Iraqi lawmakers, objecting to the U.S. action as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and calling on the government to expel U.S. troops. The U.S. forces are in Iraq to advise and assist Iraqi forces in their missions against Islamic State militants.  The Pentagon announced earlier this month the U.S. troop presence would drop from 5,200 to 3,000.  
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U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden called Sunday for the Republican-controlled Senate to delay confirmation of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, saying voters “are not going to stand for this abuse of power.” Biden said the Senate should delay action until after he or Trump is inaugurated in January for a new four-year term. But Trump has said that moving forward with his choice of Judge Amy Coney Barrett is his constitutional duty, even though no Supreme Court nominee has ever been put forth so close to a presidential election.Biden’s comments come as Democrats and Republicans moved to use the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to energize voters in the Nov. 3 election.”The Senate has to stand strong for our democracy,” Biden said at a brief news conference in his home state of Delaware. He said the Senate moving ahead on the Barrett nomination “would be an irreversible step toward the brink. And a betrayal of a single quality that America is born and built on: The people decide.”  Should he win the election, Biden said the Barrett nomination should be withdrawn so he can make a pick. President Donald Trump walks with Judge Amy Coney Barrett to a news conference to announce Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court, in the Rose Garden at the White House, Sept. 26, 2020, in Washington.Despite Biden’s plea that the Senate “must not act on this nomination,” there is no indication that Republicans intend to delay the confirmation process. The Associated Press reported Sunday that three days of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee could open Oct. 12. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not yet said whether the Senate will vote before the election.
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With just 36 days to go before the U.S. presidential election, battle lines are being drawn over President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden called on Republican senators not to confirm her before the November 3 election to allow U.S. voters to have a say, a view key Republican leaders dismiss. Michelle Quinn reports
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Lawyers for TikTok pleaded with a U.S. federal judge on Sunday to delay the Trump administration’s ban of the popular video sharing program from app stores set to take effect at the end of the day, arguing the move would infringe on First Amendment rights and do irreparable harm to the business.The 90-minute hearing came after President Donald Trump declared this summer that TikTok was a threat to national security and that it either sold its U.S. operations to U.S. companies or the app would be barred from the country.TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is scrambling to firm up a deal tentatively struck a week ago in which it would partner with tech company Oracle and retailer Walmart and that would get the blessing of the Chinese and American governments. In the meantime, it is fighting to keep the app available in the United States.The ban on new downloads of TikTok, which has about 100 million users in the U.S, was delayed once by the government. A more comprehensive ban is scheduled for November, about a week after the presidential election. Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he would make a decision by late Sunday, leaving TikTok’s fate hanging.In arguments to Nichols, TikTok lawyer John Hall said that TikTok is more than an app but rather is a “modern day version of a town square.””If that prohibition goes into effect at midnight, the consequences immediately are grave,'” Hall said. “It would be no different than the government locking the doors to a public forum, roping off that town square” at a time when a free exchange of ideas is necessary heading into a polarized election.  TikTok lawyers also argued that a ban on the app would stop tens of thousands of potential viewers and content creators every month and hurt its ability to hire new talent. In addition, Hall argued that a ban would prevent existing users from automatically receiving security updates, eroding national security.  Justice Department lawyer Daniel Schwei sought to undercut TikTok lawyers’ argument, saying that Chinese companies are not purely private and are subject to intrusive laws compelling their cooperation with intelligence agencies. The Justice Department has also argued that economic regulations of this nature generally are not subject to First Amendment scrutiny. Plaintiffs can’t claim a First Amendment right in hosting TikTok itself as a platform for others’ speech because merely hosting a platform is not an exercise of the First Amendment, the Justice Department contends.  “This is the most immediate national security threat,” Schwei argued. “It is a threat today. It is a risk today and therefore it deserves to be addressed today even while other things are ongoing and playing out.”Schwei also argued that TikTok lawyers failed to prove it would suffer irreparable business harm.The Justice Department laid out its objections to TikTok’s motion for a temporary injunction in a brief under seal, but it was unsealed in redacted form to protect confidential business information.Trump set the process in motion with executive orders in August that declared TikTok and another Chinese app, WeChat, as threats to national security. The White House says the video service is a security risk because the personal information of its millions of U.S. users could be handed over to Chinese authorities.Trump has said he would approve a proposed deal in which Oracle and Walmart could initially own a combined 20% of a new U.S. entity, TikTok Global. Trump also said he could retract his approval if Oracle doesn’t have “total control.”The two sides of the TikTok deal have also appeared at odds over the corporate structure of TikTok Global. ByteDance said last week that it will still own 80% of the U.S. entity after a financing round. Oracle, meanwhile, put out a statement saying that Americans “will be the majority and ByteDance will have no ownership in TikTok Global.”Chinese media have criticized the deal as bullying and extortion, suggesting that the Chinese government is not happy with the arrangement. ByteDance said Thursday it has applied for a Chinese technology export license after Beijing tightened control over exports last month in an effort to gain leverage over Washington’s attempt to force an outright sale of TikTok to U.S. owners.  China’s foreign ministry has said the government will “take necessary measures” to safeguard its companies but gave no indication what steps it can take to affect TikTok’s fate in the United States.TikTok is suing the U.S. government over Trump’s Aug. 6 executive order, saying it is unlawful. So are resulting Commerce Department prohibitions that aim to kick TikTok out of U.S. app stores and, in November, essentially shut it down in the U.S., it claimed.The Chinese firm said the president doesn’t have the authority to take these actions under the national security law he cited, that the ban violates TikTok’s First Amendment speech rights and Fifth Amendment due-process rights, and that there’s no authority for the restrictions because they are not based on a national emergency.
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The nation’s largest electric utility has temporarily shut off power to thousands of northern California residents to prevent wildfires sparked by electrical equipment as the state braces for potentially strong winds and extreme fire weather conditions.Pacific Gas & Electric shut off power Sunday to about 11,000 customers mostly in the Butte County area, said Angela Lombardi, a company spokeswoman. Another 54,000 customers could see their power shut off later in the day because of the hot, dry weather and high winds in the forecast, she said, adding residents in a total of 16 counties could be affected.The shutoffs are only called “as a last resort,” Lombardi said. “PG&E meteorologists are continually evaluating and monitoring the weather.”The shutoffs come as fire-weary California prepared for a new siege of hot, dry weather with potentially strong winds that could cause power lines to arc and spark new blazes in parched vegetation that’s ready to burn.  Red Flag warnings for extreme fire weather conditions were issued for the northern and central areas of the state from late Saturday to Monday, the National Weather Service said.  A new wildfire broke out Sunday in Napa County, prompting the evacuation of residents before dawn. The swift-moving fire is near several wineries and has burned 1.6 square miles (4.1 square kilometers), the San Francisco Chronicle reported.Amy Bordeau, of Calistoga, told the newspaper she woke up to fire alerts and social media messages from worried friends and grabbed the same bag she recently used when evacuating from another fire.”It’s a bit traumatizing,” she said. “I feel like I’m constantly fight or flight.”So far this year, more than 8,000 California wildfires have scorched 5,600 square miles (14,504 square kilometers), destroyed more than 7,000 buildings and killed 26 people. Most of the loss has occurred since a frenzy of dry lightning strikes in mid-August ignited a massive outbreak of fires. The causes of other fires remain under investigation and authorities said one was caused by a pyrotechnic device at a gender reveal event.PG&E has said it is striving to narrow the scope and shorten the length of power cuts after being sharply criticized for intentional outages last year that affected millions of people and sometimes lasted for days.Lombardi said the utility hopes to be able to inspect equipment once the windy weather subsides Monday. After that point, the company aims to subsequently restore power to customers within 12 daylight hours, she said.The shutoffs are part of a safety program that aims to prevent disasters. Wildfires sparked by PG&E equipment include the wind-driven 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed much of the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Paradise and killed 85 people.
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The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has reported large jumps in new COVID-19 cases in India and the U.S.Johns Hopkins said late Saturday that India had 86,054 new infections in the previous 24 hours, while the U.S. reported 55,054.In the U.S., the coronavirus has reached the country’s so-called “heartland,” an area in the middle of the country that seemed to be impervious to the virus when the country’s Northeastern, Southern, and Western states were stricken earlier this year. North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin have been hit hard by the outbreak.Europe is experiencing a new wave of coronavirus infections, leading some governments across the continent to reimpose restrictions on residents and businesses.In France, the head of the National Council of the Order of Doctors said a “second wave” of COVID cases “is arriving faster than we thought.”Patrick Bouet told Journal du Dimanche that “if nothing changes, France will face a widespread outbreak across its whole territory, for several long autumn and winter months” and the health system would crumble under the demands.On Saturday, France said it had recorded more than 14,000 new infections in the previous 24 hours.Dutch Prime Minister Make Rutte called the wave of infections in his country “very worrisome and will force us to take extra measures.”The Czech Republic also will face new measures, Health Minister Roman Prymula said Friday, without specifying exactly what limits will be in place.In Spain, local Madrid authorities and the national government are clashing over the extent of the steps needed to control the outbreak of new infections in the capital region.Unmasked demonstrators took to London’s streets Saturday to protest new lockdown measures. Police broke up the demonstration and at least 16 people were arrested.There are nearly 33 million global COVID-19 cases.The U.S. has more than 7 million cases, followed by India with nearly 6 million, and Brazil with almost 5 million.  
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