The proposed “False Alarm Ordinance” will be reviewed as part of the board’s final agenda for 2020.

The measure has been discussed in previous years, but the board never reached the point of actually voting to enact it. The proposed ordinance is a result of lengthy research by the county Sheriff’s and Fire departments, as well as the Office of County Counsel, according to documents posted to the board’s policy agenda.

“False alarms consume public safety resources and can increase response times for legitimate emergencies,” a statement posted to the agenda reads. “A false alarm ordinance could reduce the number of false alarms and the time spent responding to them.”

Los Angeles 2 hours ago

LA Nightclub Continued Underground Operation Despite COVID-19 Protocols

san fernando valley 5 hours ago

40 Homeless Families Move Into New SF Valley Housing Complex in Time for the Holidays

The proposal draws from provisions contained in similar ordinances on the books in the cities of Corona, Lake Elsinore, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Palm Springs and Riverside.

Data compiled for the board showed that in 2016, sheriff’s deputies were sent to investigate 15,172 alarm calls in unincorporated communities, and of those, 13,461 — 88% — were determined to be false, while 1,674 were canceled before deputies reached the scene. Only 37 alarms were verified as requiring immediate attention, officials said.

The fire department did not provide composite numbers on calls, but noted that in 2017, crews were dispatched to 2,662 false alarms.

Under the proposed ordinance, anytime deputies or firefighters go to a call and determine the alarm to be false, the person or entity whose home or business caused the alarm would receive a written warning. A second call for the same reason would result in a warning that a penalty would be assessed if there is a third call.

A third false alarm would necessitate a fine of $50. A fourth call would lead to a fine of $100, a fifth call $150, and for every call after that — $200.

The penalties would be established as part of the county’s anti-public nuisance code.

Recipients of fines would be entitled to an appeals process, initially via an “Alarm Appeals Officer,” and after that, the courts.

If an alarm company’s faulty system is found to be the cause of the alarms, it, too, could be held liable.

The proposal also specifies that all audible security alarms have an automatic deactivation feature that makes them stop sounding after 15 minutes, and there’s a provision mandating that companies make at least two attempts to contact the property owner or alarm user twice before notifying law enforcement of the alarm.

In 1996, the county established an ordinance seeking to fine alarm companies for false alarms, but several providers sued, and the ordinance was nullified. The current proposal has been court-tested thanks to municipalities passing their own regulations, all of which have withstood scrutiny.

The LA Party Society has been operating without licenses and permits in the downtown Fashion District, prosecutors allege in a lawsuit filed Nov. 25, as well as in defiance of COVID-19 Stay-at-Home orders.

san fernando valley 5 hours ago

40 Homeless Families Move Into New SF Valley Housing Complex in Time for the Holidays

USC 5 hours ago

USC Will Be Able to Conduct 100,000 COVID-19 Tests Per Week During Spring Semester

City Attorney Mike Feuer also said the club is a “hub of violence and crime,” including several shootings over the summer.

“Beyond the bullets, assaults, and criminal activity, packing people into an unlicensed nightclub during the pandemic is the height of irresponsibility,” Feuer said Monday in a news release. “That’s why licensed clubs are closed right now.”

The nuisance abatement lawsuit seeks to permanently shut down the club, which has been operating out of a storefront, as well as prohibit the defendants from using the property as a nightclub in the future.

The lawsuit alleges that the nightclub is advertised as a secret venue on social media and offers pole dancing, music, hookah, performances and a bar. Prosecutors say that while the storefront looks closed, patrons enter through a back door.

The suit names as defendants LA Party Society operator Yves Oscar, Jr., as well as Frontier Holdings East, LLC and Regal Group, LLC, each of which has an ownership interest in the property and are managed by real estate investor David Taban.

They are scheduled to appear in court in April, records show.

It was not immediately clear if Oscar and Taban had attorneys who could speak on their behalf and efforts to reach them were unsuccessful.

On the same day, hospital workers across the country began unloading precious frozen vials of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine as the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history got underway, with the first shots administered to health care workers in New York.

Early supplies are sparse, and health care workers are first in line, not just doctors and nurses but also janitors and other staff. So are nursing home residents. How well initial vaccinations go will help reassure a wary public when it’s their turn sometime next year. Another vaccine candidate, one from Moderna, could be approved by the Food and Drug Administration as soon as the end of the week.

The vaccine campaign is offering hope in the fight against the pandemic that has infected over 16 million in the U.S. alone.

US Ramps Up Vaccination Efforts

Hundreds more U.S. hospitals will begin vaccinating their workers Tuesday as federal health officials review a second COVID-19 shot needed to boost the nation’s largest vaccination campaign.

Packed in dry ice to stay at ultra-frozen temperatures, shipments of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine are set to arrive at 400 additional hospitals and other distribution sites, one day after the nation’s death toll surpassed a staggering 300,000. The first 3 million shots are being strictly rationed to front-line health workers and elder-care patients, with hundreds of millions more shots needed over the coming months to protect most Americans.

In Florida, government officials expect to have 100,000 doses of the vaccine by Tuesday at five hospitals across the state.

Vaccinations were also expected to kick off Tuesday in New Jersey, which is dividing some 76,000 doses among health workers and nursing home residents, NBC New York reports. The federal government is coordinating the massive delivery operation by private shipping and distribution companies based on locations chosen by state governors.

Following another initial set of deliveries Wednesday, officials with the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed in Washington said they will begin moving 580 more shipments through the weekend.

NFL Won’t Be Cutting in Line for Coronavirus Vaccine

The NFL won’t be cutting in line to get the coronavirus vaccine.

“No one should be thinking about the vaccine going anywhere other than our first responders and the most vulnerable people right now,” said DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association.

“We’re in complete harmony with the union in that we feel that it’s vital that frontline healthcare workers and another essential service workers are at the front of the line,” said Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer.

“The rollout of the vaccine is going to be driven by public health concerns and what medical and government officials determine to be the most efficacious for risk reduction across society as a whole. We’re prepared to support that effort,” Sills said.

On a recent media conference call, Smith and NFLPA president JC Tretter emphasized that football doesn’t deserve any favors or special treatment when it comes to COVID-19 inoculations.

The NFL will continue spending millions of dollars on daily COVID-19 tests, combined with social distancing and contact tracing to mitigate infections so they can get all 256 regular season games and 13 playoff contests in the books culminating in Super Bowl 55 on Feb. 7 in Tampa, Florida.

Alabama Loosens Licensing Rules for Doctors as Virus Rages

Regulators have loosened rules to make it easier for out-of-state doctors to work in Alabama as the coronavirus pandemic both fills hospital beds and strains medical staff by sickening doctors and nurses, officials said Monday as the first doses of vaccine arrived.

With an average of more than 2,100 people hospitalized daily over the last week with the illness caused by the virus, COVID-19, the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners and the Medical Licensure Commission decided to let qualified physicians from other states and Canada seek temporary emergency licenses to work in the state.

The Alabama Hospital Association has reported staffing shortages caused by both an inadequate number of beds in places and a lack of staff to treat patients, partly because medical workers are among the ill.

Under an emergency rule adopted by regulators during a weekend meeting, doctors licensed in other states or Canada can seek a license to work in an Alabama hospital for 180 days or until Gov. Kay Ivey ends the state’s public health emergency.

Coronavirus Pandemic Coverage

georgia 7 hours ago

Georgia Man Who Lied to Employer About Having COVID-19 Pleads Guilty

vaccine 14 hours ago

When Dr. Fauci and Other Experts Say You Can Expect to Get Vaccinated for COVID-19

“We ask that you immediately reclassify the restaurant industry as critical infrastructure before more damage is done,” the letter says. “As it is becoming obvious to Californians, these essential businesses do more than simply provide a place to eat. Restaurants are active participants in local neighborhoods, providing meals to senior citizens and working with food banks to feed families struggling to put food on their tables.”

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The petitioners submitted their letter Friday. The signers were Sens. Patricia Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, and Scott Wilk, R-Lancaster, along with Sens. Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, Andreas Borgeas, R-Fresno, Brian Dahle, R- Redding, Shannon Grove, R-Yucca Valley, Melissa Hurtado, D-Hanford, Brian Jones, R-El Cajon, and Jim Nielsen, R-Roseville; Sen.-elect Rosilicie Bogh, R-Rancho Cucamonga, and Assemblywoman Monique Limon, D-Santa Barbara.

LAUSD 6 hours ago

LAUSD Extends No-Fail Policy Due to Pandemic

georgia 7 hours ago

Georgia Man Who Lied to Employer About Having COVID-19 Pleads Guilty

“We urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to reclassify restaurants as essential businesses and adopt the industry’s protocols that would allow restaurants to operate safely,” the letter reads. “The future of thousands of restaurants, their employees and the unique character of our local communities are dependent on the survival of this industry.”

The petitioners pointed out that in 2019, 1.8 million jobs statewide were tied to the restaurant and food service industry. Roughly 60% of eateries are owned by people of color, and 50% are owned or partially owned by women, according to the lawmakers’ letter.

The California Restaurant Association last week prevailed in a case against Los Angeles County related to public health-mandated restaurant closures earlier this year. However, the industry has not filed suit challenging the governor’s decree.

The current closures are connected to Newsom’s limited stay-at-home order issued on Nov. 19, as well as the broader regional order he signed on Dec. 3, citing rapidly escalating coronavirus infection rates.

“The bottom line is, if we don’t act now, our hospital system will be overwhelmed,” he said. “If we don’t act now, we’ll continue to see the death rate climb, more lives lost.”

The presidential electors gave Biden a solid majority of 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, the same margin that Trump bragged was a landslide when he won the White House four years ago.

Heightened security was in place in some states as electors met to cast paper ballots, with masks, social distancing and other pandemic precautions the order of the day. The results will be sent to Washington and tallied in a Jan. 6 joint session of Congress over which Vice President Mike Pence will preside.

For all Trump’s unsupported claims of fraud, there was little suspense and no change as every one of the electoral votes allocated to Biden and the president in last month’s popular vote went officially to each man. On Election Day, the Democrat topped the incumbent Republican by more than 7 million in the popular vote nationwide.

California’s 55 electoral votes put Biden over the top. Vermont, with 3 votes, was the first state to report. Hawaii, with 4 votes, was the last.

“Once again in America, the rule of law, our Constitution, and the will of the people have prevailed. Our democracy — pushed, tested, threatened — proved to be resilient, true, and strong,” Biden said in an evening speech in which he stressed the size of his win and the record 81 million people who voted for him.

Biden pointedly criticized Trump for threatening core principles of democracy even as he told Americans that their form of self-government ultimately “prevailed.”

Speaking from his longtime home of Wilmington, Delaware, on the day that electors nationwide cast votes affirming his victory, Biden was blunt in critiquing the damage done by Trump’s baseless allegations that the contest was stolen. Such arguments have been roundly rejected by judges across the political spectrum, including the justices at the Supreme Court.

Democracy, Biden said, has been “pushed, tested, threatened.” But he said it proved to be “resilient, true, and strong.”

“The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago,” Biden said. “And we now know that nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power, can extinguish that flame.”

He renewed his campaign promise to be a president for all Americans, whether they voted for him or not, and said the country has hard work ahead on the virus and economy. He told Americans that “democracy prevailed.”

The fact that he had to even give such a speech shortly after electors voted to make him the president — a usually routine and even mundane step — shows how extraordinary the post-election period has been, with Trump trying to thwart Biden at every turn.

Despite that, Biden struck a familiar theme of his presidential campaign, pledging to be “a president for all Americans” who will “work just as hard for those of you who didn’t vote for me as I will for those who did.”

“Now it is time to turn the page as we’ve done throughout our history,” he said. “To unite. To heal.”

But there was no concession from the White House, where Trump has continued to make unsupported allegations of fraud.

Trump remained in the Oval Office long after the sun set in Washington, calling allies and fellow Republicans while keeping track of the running Electoral College tally, according to White House and campaign aides. The president frequently ducked into the private dining room off the Oval Office to watch on TV, complaining that the cable networks were treating it like a mini-Election Night while not giving his challenges any airtime.

The president had grown increasingly disappointed with the size of “Stop the Steal” rallies across the nation as well as efforts for the GOP to field its own slates of electors in states. A presidential wish for a fierce administration defense led to TV appearances early Monday by Stephen Miller, one of his most ferocious advocates, to try to downplay the importance of the Electoral College vote and suggest that Trump’s legal challenges would continue all the way to Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

Late in the day, he took to Twitter to announce that Attorney General William Barr was leaving the administration before Christmas. Barr’s departure comes amid lingering tension over Trump’s unsupported fraud claims, especially after Barr’s statement this month to The Associated Press that the election results were unaffected by any fraud.

In a Fox News interview taped over the weekend, Trump said that “I worry about the country having an illegitimate president, that’s what I worry about. A president that lost and lost badly.”

On Monday in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the six battleground states that Biden won and Trump contested — electors gave Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris their votes in low-key proceedings. Nevada’s electors met via Zoom because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump’s efforts to undermine the election results also led to concerns about safety for the electors, virtually unheard of in previous years. In Michigan, lawmakers from both parties reported receiving threats, and legislative offices were closed over threats of violence. Biden won the state by 154,000 votes, or 2.8 percentage points, over Trump.

Georgia state police were out in force at the state Capitol in Atlanta before Democratic electors pledged to Biden met. There were no protesters seen.

Even with the Electoral College’s confirmation of Biden’s victory, some Republicans continued to refuse to acknowledge that reality. Yet their opposition to Biden had no practical effect on the electoral process, with the Democrat to be sworn in next month.

Republicans who would have been Trump electors met anyway in a handful of states Biden won. Pennsylvania Republicans said they cast a “procedural vote” for Trump and Pence in case courts that have repeatedly rejected challenges to Biden’s victory were to somehow still determine that Trump had won.

In North Carolina, Utah and other states across the country where Trump won, his electors turned out to duly cast their ballots for him. Electors in North Carolina had their temperatures checked before being allowed to enter the Capitol to vote. Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes withdrew as a Trump elector and was in quarantine because he was exposed to someone with COVID-19.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated four years ago, were among New York’s 29 electors for Biden and Harris.

In New Hampshire, before the state’s four electors voted for Biden at the State House in Concord, 13-year-old Brayden Harrington led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance. He had delivered a moving speech at the Democratic National Convention in August about the struggle with stuttering he shares with Biden.

Following weeks of Republican legal challenges that were easily dismissed by judges, Trump and Republican allies tried to persuade the Supreme Court last week to set aside 62 electoral votes for Biden in four states, which might have thrown the outcome into doubt.

The justices rejected the effort on Friday.

The Electoral College was the product of compromise during the drafting of the Constitution between those who favored electing the president by popular vote and those who opposed giving the people the power to directly choose their leader.

Each state gets a number of electors equal to its total number of seats in Congress: two senators plus however many members the state has in the House of Representatives. Washington, D.C., has three votes, under a constitutional amendment that was ratified in 1961. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, states award all their Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular vote in their state.

The bargain struck by the nation’s founders has produced five elections in which the president did not win the popular vote. Trump was the most recent example in 2016.

Last month 40 families were homeless, as of last week they now have a place of their own.

“By bringing Christmas trees, food for everybody, lunch for today, food for the holidays and generous donors to LA Family Housing — has allowed us to buy thousands of presents for all the children we serve,” Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, from LA Family Housing said.

Congress Dec 11

Here's How the Eviction Crisis Could Increase the Spread of Covid in the US

homeless Dec 10

LA County Calls Off 2021 Homeless Count, Citing COVID-19

This is the first permanent housing complex purchased by the city, with wrap-around social services from LA Family Housing, and with money from state and federal COVID-19 relief funds.

“It’s amazing. We’re in shock. We can’t believe it, that we’re here,” formerly homeless, Carolina Gonzalez said.

One year ago we profiled Carolina and her husband Carlos along with their 5 children, when they were living in a Sylmar motel room. They had been in the system for years and were about to spend Thanksgiving on the street.

A month later, Christmas was spent in their car, before our story led them to LA Family Housing and a temporary shelter out of the cold. Since then, they say they’d bounced around half a dozen times until now.

Now they have their own 3-bed, 2-bath, living room and kitchen, and just in time for Christmas.

“I love you so much, Mr. John. Thank you so much,” Gonzalez said.

Thanking us for sharing their story, and LA Family Housing for navigating them home, they hope their story motivates and gives other families still living without a stable roof some hope these holidays. 

“I didn’t do anything. You guys worked hard to make it happen,” said our own, John Cádiz Klemack.

“Yes, I never gave up and even though my life has changed, I will not give up and I would go through it again, just to be with my family here today,” Gonzalez said.

The new program was spearheaded by the Keck Medicine of USC team in partnership with campus operational teams, according to a letter sent to the USC community from Dr. Sarah Van Orman, USC Student Health’s chief health officer and Keck School of Medicine of USC’s division chief for college health.

The polymerase chain reaction test results will be available within 24-48 hours, but a majority of results will be ready on the same day as the test, Orman said, adding that PCR tests are the “gold standard of COVID-19 testing.”

USC is also pursuing innovative solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic.

COLLEGE ADMISSIONS SCANDAL Dec 8

Lori Loughlin's Daughter Olivia Jade Breaks Silence on College Admissions Scandal

Football Dec 13

Kedon Slovis Throws 5 Touchdowns as No. 16 USC Rallies From 18 Points to Stun Rival UCLA

“The university is in the process of operationalizing and validating a technology solution for rapid and accurate detection of the virus that causes COVID-19. Data from the validation of this technology is currently under review,” Orman said.

“We hope to share confirmation of this screening system in the next few weeks.”

The university is preparing for a greater density of students, faculty and staff on campus during the spring semester.

Hospital workers across the country began unloading precious frozen vials of the COVID-19 vaccine Monday as the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history got underway, with the first shots administered to health care workers in New York.

Early supplies are sparse, and health care workers are first in line, not just doctors and nurses but also janitors and other staff. So are nursing home residents. How well initial vaccinations go will help reassure a wary public when it’s their turn sometime next year.

Still, the vaccine is offering hope in the fight against the pandemic that has killed more than 300,000 and infected over 16 million in the U.S. alone.

US Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 300,000

The U.S. surpassed the once-unthinkable threshold of 300,000 COVID-19 deaths Monday, according to an NBC News tally.

The grim milestone was reached on the same day health care workers across the country began receiving the first shots of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine. There have been more than 16.4 million confirmed cases of the deadly virus in the U.S. since the pandemic began earlier in the year.

A recent surge in transmissions has led to record-breaking numbers of hospitalizations and deaths over the last two weeks, with an average of more than 210,000 new infections and nearly 2,500 deaths a day this month.

A record of more than 109,000 people were in the hospital in the U.S. with COVID-19 as of Monday, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

Nursing Homes Face Vaccine Fears

After 110,000 deaths ravaged the nation’s nursing homes and pushed them to the front of the vaccine line, they now face a vexing problem: Skeptical residents and workers balking at getting the shots.

Being first has come with persistent fears that the places hit hardest in the pandemic — accounting for nearly 40% of the nation’s death toll — could be put at risk again by vaccines sped into development in months rather than years. Some who live and work in homes question if enough testing was done on the elderly, if enough is known of side effects and if the shots could do more harm than good.

Internal surveys by groups including the American Nurses Foundation suggest many workers in long-term care facilities are so concerned about the vaccine they would refuse it.

Christina Chiger, a 33-year-veteran nurse’s aide at a nursing home in Tampa, Florida, is exhausted and frightened after a relentless nine months that left two dozen residents dead and made 16-hour shifts common. But she has no plans to take the vaccine, for now at least.

“Will there be side effects? Will it actually work?” she asked. “If we all get sick from taking this, who’s going to take care of our patients?”

Cultural issues could also be at play. People of color make up a majority of aides and other frontline workers in nursing homes, and some minorities express mistrust of medicine that experts see linked with past abuses.

A poll released last week by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found Black and Hispanic people in the U.S. are far less likely than white people to agree to be vaccinated. Some 53% of whites said they would get the shots, compared with 24% of Blacks and 34% of Hispanics.

First COVID Vaccine Shots Administered to US Health Workers

A critical care nurse at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens received the first shot of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in the state of New York, and reportedly first in the nation.

Northwell Health, the state’s largest healthcare provider, began vaccinating workers Monday. The first shot went to critical care nurse Sandra Lindsay, who received the vaccine just after 9:20 a.m. ET during a livestreamed event with gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“I feel hopeful today. Relieved,” said Lindsay.

FedEx Completes First Deliveries of Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID Vaccine

FedEx announced in a tweet Monday that it has “safely” completed its first deliveries of the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

“We’re honored to be able to use our network to transport these critical vaccines in the U.S., and eventually the world,” the shipping giant posted just before 7 a.m. on its official Twitter account.

The first inoculations of Pfizer’s vaccine could come as soon as Monday, with healthcare workers and nursing home residents first in line.

Trump Says He’s Nixing Plans for Early Vaccine at White House

President Donald Trump says he’s reversing an administration directive to vaccinate top government officials against COVID-19 while public distribution of the shot is limited to front-line health workers and people in nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

Trump made the announcement in a tweet Sunday night, hours after his administration confirmed that senior U.S. officials, including some White House aides who work in close proximity to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, would be offered coronavirus vaccines as soon as this week under federal continuity of government plans.

“People working in the White House should receive the vaccine somewhat later in the program, unless specifically necessary,” Trump said in a tweet. “I have asked that this adjustment be made. I am not scheduled to take the vaccine, but look forward to doing so at the appropriate time.”

It was not immediately clear what effect Trump’s tweet would have on the government’s efforts to protect top leadership.

Los Angeles, San Francisco Counties Break COVID-19 Records

Los Angeles County again broke a record for coronavirus hospitalizations this weekend as San Francisco County reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began.

Statewide, more than 30,000 confirmed coronavirus cases were reported Sunday.

In San Francisco County, health officials reported 323 new cases on Saturday. In Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, officials said on Sunday that more than 4,000 people were hospitalized for COVID-19. The record-breaking figures in Los Angeles and San Francisco counties come as more than 325,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine are on their way to California. Millions of residents in the majority of the state are under stay-at-home orders.

CORRECTION (Dec. 14, 11:13 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this story reported a daily record for COVID-19 cases had been set on Monday, based on an NBC News tally. NBC News later reported a daily record had not been set.

Coronavirus Pandemic Coverage

coronavirus Dec 11

Coronavirus Vaccine 101: When and Where Can I Get a Shot? Is It Safe? Is It Free?

coronavirus vaccine Dec 13

First Americans Receive COVID-19 Vaccine as Historic Effort Begins

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The decision extends a modified version of the district’s “no fail” policy of the 2020 spring semester, when schools first closed after the virus outbreak began, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The nation’s second-largest school district said it wants to avoid penalizing students who may be struggling during the public health emergency.

LAUSD 14 hours ago

Why LAUSD's Superintendent Says Schools Are Ideal Sites For Coronavirus Vaccine Distribution

Donald Trump 12 hours ago

Second $1,200 Stimulus Checks Are Not in the New $908 Billion Relief Proposal. Some Are Calling for That to Change

The Times said the new policy grew out of concerns about the dramatic rise in D and F grades as many schools remain closed and rely on distance-only learning. Many students are coping with is inconsistent or inadequate internet access and an insufficient learning environment at home.

Monday’s directive notes that, compared to last year, grades have deteriorated, especially for “high-need students,” the newspaper reported.

The shooting was reported on the southbound 15 Freeway south of Jurupa Avenue at 5:02 p.m., the California Highway Patrol said.

The call originally came in as a traffic collision, officials said. A witness called 911 and reported seeing a man in a black Kia SUV pull over and get out of his vehicle with a handgun in his hand, officials added.

Few details were available about the gunman.

No other details were immediately available.

The southbound 15 Freeway was shut down with no word on when it will reopen.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The victim wanted to surprise his wife with a new car for her birthday, so he did not hesitate to contact the person who was selling the vehicle.

According to the ad on Offer Up, the truck, a 2016 Silverado, cost $16,000. The owner then arranged for them to meet, so he could see the vehicle in Corona.

Orange County 8 hours ago

Orange County Sets Records for COVID-19 Daily Cases, Hospitalizations as Vaccines Set to Arrive

Orange County 9 hours ago

Man Sentenced to Death for 1995 Torture Killing of OC Teen Dies in Prison

“The truck was beautiful!” says Lorena, the victim’s daughter. “We were delighted. A whole truck!”

Lorena says that her father negotiated with the seller, who lowered the price down to $14,000.

“My father gave him the money and the boy gave my father the pink slip, auto registration and proof of insurance”.

The seller then left after giving them all the documents and the car. When Lorena and her father called their insurance agent to purchase coverage, they were told that something was wrong.

“The papers did not match those of the truck,” says Lorena. “At that moment, my brother went to look in CARFAX and it said that the truck was stolen.”

Unable to believe it, they decided to call the police. They confirmed that the vehicle was stolen and the license plate was also from another stolen car.

Unfortunately, the authorities confiscated the truck, and they were left without their money.

But they decided not to sit idly by. They checked the Offer Up page again and found the same salesperson who was advertising a 2016 black Silverado pickup.

They made an appointment with the man and notified the police.

“It turns out that the truck was stolen,” says Lorena. “Unfortunately, the seller was not there. He had already fled when we arrived.”

Devastated, they wanted to share their story to prevent other people from falling for this scam.

Recommendations for buying a car online

• Check the car’s history at CARFAX to verify that everything is in order.
• Make an appointment to meet the seller at a police station.
• Also check the vehicle identification number on the National Insurance Crime Bureau website by clicking here. On that page you will also find other options to check the car’s history.

The perfect place to transact the purchase and sale of a used vehicle is the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). There you can request the transfer of the title and it will allow you to make sure that the whole process is legal.

Remember: Never pay until you are sure the entire process is legitimate.

Helen Cordova sat patiently and joked with other medical personnel as she was given the Pfizer vaccine — administered with a shot in her right arm.

Thousands of doses of the vaccine arrived at Los Angeles International Airport Sunday night, marking the first step in a massive undertaking that will see the county attempt to vaccinate 6 million people in six months, beginning with critical health care workers.

LAX officials trumpeted the arrival of the vaccine on Twitter, posting photos of the FedEx jetliner carrying the vaccine, which received formal approval from federal authorities over the weekend for immediate use.

Gov. Gavin Newsom was among the elected officials on hand at the Kaiser Permanente facility in Hollywood to watch Cordova’s inoculation. Moments later, he tweeted, “History made.” A handful of other Kaiser workers were also vaccinated as cameras rolled.

Pfizer and U.S. officials said the vaccine has been found to be 95% effective in preventing COVID-19.

Army Gen. Gustave Perna of Operation Warp Speed told reporters Saturday that UPS and FedEx would be delivering the vaccine to nearly 150 distribution centers across the country.

Los Angeles County’s initial allotment of vaccine is expected to be nearly 83,000 doses, a population-based percentage of the roughly 327,000 doses being received by the state of California. The county’s vaccines will be dispersed to nine ultra-cold storage facilities — the locations of which ware not being released due to security concerns, although some hospitals have publicly stated they would be handling the medication. Those facilities will then distribute the doses to 83 acute-care hospitals, which will then oversee its administration to selected critical frontline workers.

UCLA Health officials said they expected to get the vaccines Monday or Tuesday, with shots administered on Wednesday.

“UCLA Health is implementing comprehensive and detailed plans to receive, store and administer COVID-19 vaccinations. We anticipate a limited number of doses arriving in the next day or two, with additional supplies to follow. We have been designated as a regional hub for distribution to other acute-care hospitals,” a UCLA Health statement said.

“Based on the phased allocations made available to UCLA Health, we are committed to offering vaccinations in a fair, equitable and orderly manner that prioritizes those at greatest risk, consistent with guidelines established by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the California and Los Angeles County departments of public health. UCLA Health anticipates beginning to inoculate our own frontline health care workers as soon as Wednesday.”

Officials with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said they had no definitive information yet on when they would be receiving the vaccine.

coronavirus 13 hours ago

Here's When the Covid Vaccine Could Be Available at Your Neighborhood Drugstore, Grocery Store

coronavirus 13 hours ago

Vaccine Comes Too Late for the 300,000 US Dead

Donald Trump 19 hours ago

Bipartisan Group Releases Covid Relief Bill as Congress Faces Pressure to Send Help

According to Newsom’s office, a Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup — a group of experts created by governors of California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington to independently verify the safety of any vaccine — concluded its review of the Pfizer vaccine Sunday and confirmed it is “safe and efficacious.”

The Pfizer vaccine was co-developed by German partner BioNTech. It needs to be stored at minus-94 degrees Fahrenheit.

Last week, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said that the county hopes to receive its second allotment of a vaccine made by Moderna — about 250,000 doses, pending FDA approval — around Dec. 20-21. Much of that second dose allotment will be distributed directly skilled nursing facilities, allowing them to administer it right away instead of waiting for a federal distribution agreement with CVS and Walgreens to begin on roughly Dec. 28.

Staff and residents of nursing facilities and long-term care facilities will be among the first wave of people receiving the Moderna vaccine, which does not require the ultra-cold storage needed for the Pfizer vaccine. Long-term care facilities will still receive the vaccine through CVS and Walgreens.

Ferrer said public health officials on Friday began the process of training skilled nursing facility staff on how to administer the vaccination, while noting that those staffers already administer flu vaccines, so it is not a new experience.

The county anticipates receiving another 150,000 doses of vaccine by the end of December, followed by weekly allotments of 250,000 beginning in January. Both vaccines require two doses, separated by about three weeks. With the county planning to vaccinate 6 million people in six months, that equates to 12 million doses of vaccine.

After the distribution of vaccines to health care workers, skilled nursing facilities and long-term care staff and residents is completed, priority will then move to “essential workers” and then to people at highest risk of severe illness from the virus, such as seniors or those with underlying health conditions.

The county’s chief science officer insisted Thursday the process will be done equitably based on health priorities, not on power or prominence.

“Equity is a fundamental principle here,” Dr. Paul Simon said. “We want to make sure all people have access, and that those that are at greatest risk either because of higher risk of exposure, or greater risk of severe illness because of chronic health conditions or other factors have more immediate access to the vaccine.”

Simon conceded that the judgment of who is considered “at risk” could become a matter for debate.

“That probably is going to become an important consideration when we really start to roll things out — when we move beyond the highest-risk groups into groups where the risks may be a little bit more uncertain or there are larger areas of gray,” he said. “And there, I think, we will do our best to prioritize, be as transparent as possible. I don’t think we’re going to be doing validation checks with each person as they float through the line, so I think there is sort of an honor system to some degree. But we will do everything possible to make sure we are doing this in an equitable manner, tending to the risks and making sure that we maximize the benefits.”

The timing of when the vaccine will start to become available to more of the general population remains a mystery. Simon said that while the vaccine offers a glimmer of hope about a potential end to the pandemic and lockdown orders, the county is still in the midst of a dangerous surge in cases, so residents should expect to see restrictions continuing for months.

He said the administration of the vaccine — an effort to vaccinate about 6 million people in six months — will be a “massive undertaking the scale of which many would argue is unprecedented given the time emergency.”

But he said a major factor in moving the county closer to “herd immunity” and an eventual return to normalcy will rely on people actually agreeing to be vaccinated.

“We recognize many folks have concerns about the vaccines and may be hesitant to be vaccinated,” Simon said. “As we implement the county plan to vaccinate literally millions of Angelenos, it will be critically important that we address this vaccine hesitancy with accurate, understandable, culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate information, relying on trusted community leaders to help deliver these messages.”

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The county logged 3,250 COVID-19 new infections, raising the cumulative case total to 105,754.

Hospitalizations jumped from 1,236 Sunday to 1,287, including 288 ICU patients, up from 284 the previous day. Both are new records — a daily occurrence since last week.

The county’s ICU bed availability shrunk from 11.2% Sunday to 9.3% Monday in the unadjusted category, but is at zero for the “adjusted” metric that the state has created to reflect the difference in beds available for COVID-19 patients and non-coronavirus patients.

The Southern California region’s percentage of ICU beds available stands at 2.7%.

No new fatalities were reported Monday in Orange County, leaving the death toll at 1,694. On Sunday, 14 COVID-19 fatalities were reported.

Business 21 hours ago

Covid Live Updates: U.S. Death Toll Hits 300,000; New Virus Variant Spreading in UK

Donald Trump 12 hours ago

Second $1,200 Stimulus Checks Are Not in the New $908 Billion Relief Proposal. Some Are Calling for That to Change

Last week, the county reported 62 fatalities, up from 41 and 26, respectively, in the two previous weeks.

Prior to this month, the record for ICU patients in Orange was 245 during a mid-July surge. Overall hospitalizations have been breaking records daily since Dec. 2.

Orange County, which had 53% of its ventilators available as of Monday, is awaiting its first shipment of vaccines, expected to arrive Wednesday. About 25,000 doses are expected, according to Orange County CEO Frank Kim.

The county has the necessary deep freezers and dry ice available to store the medicine, he said, noting that frontline hospital workers are expected to be among the first to receive the Pfizer vaccine.

The plan is to use the doses as soon as possible.

“Once it is in, we’re just going to get it all out in 48 hours,” Kim said. “I don’t want to sit on it. The minute it comes in I don’t care what time of day it is, I’ll push it out.”

The outbreak in the jails, which started last week, has escalated to 416 inmates, 37 of whom are newly booked prisoners, said Carrie Braun of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

“The vast majority are asymptomatic,” Braun said, adding that most of the infected inmates are housed at the Theo Lacy jail in Orange and the men’s Central Jail in Santa Ana.

Sheriff Don Barnes, who had earlier kept testing restricted to newly booked inmates, anyone showing symptoms, or those exposed to an infected person, will now seek to test everyone in the jails, Braun said. When an inmate tests positive, they are restricted to a single cell in isolated status, and any others exposed are being quarantined together as they await test results, Braun said.

The outbreak recently delayed the murder trial of Austin Ambriz when he tested positive on the eve of closing argument and has also affected an ongoing preliminary hearing involving Johnny Martinez, the reputed leader of Orange County’s chapter of the Mexican Mafia. Cordova has tested positive for COVID-19 and is showing symptoms, according to sources.

Martinez is charged with a murder conspiracy in Placentia along with co-defendants Ysrael Cordova, Augustine Velasquez, Gregory David Munoz and Ricardo Valenzuela.

Joel Garson, one of the attorneys involved in the case, criticized officials for allowing the hearing to continue during the outbreak. Martinez has been placed in quarantine, Garson said, and the three other defendants appeared at a hearing this morning.

“Why wasn’t (Cordova) quarantined when he was exposed?” Garson said. “Then I wouldn’t have to worry and nobody else in the courts either. There were bailiffs dealing with him throughout the day. He probably exposed six or seven people within that six-feet radius and sat in a courtroom with a dozen people most of the day (last week) and I assume they knew he was exposed (to another infected inmate).”

Braun said the sheriff is ordered to bus inmates to court and has attempted to reduce the number on the buses. But since inmates from multiple facilities are housed together in a holding tank at the court, there is going to be mixing of populations, Braun acknowledged.

Meanwhile, Barnes has been ordered by an Orange County Superior Court judge to reduce his jail population by half by Friday, meaning 1,800 inmates could be released to home confinement or ankle-bracelet monitoring or just fully set free. Barnes has said he wants to appeal the ruling, which the county Board of Supervisors is expected to consider at Tuesday’s meeting.

“We need to look at all options if the inmates are released prematurely,'” said Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett. “We need to look out for the health and welfare of our citizens in the county… There are no easy answers here, but first and foremost it is our top priority to make sure we keep our residents of the county safe.”

The county is also dealing with an uptick in outbreaks at skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. As of Monday, 29 skilled nursing facilities have had two or more confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 30 assisted living facilities had two or more cases.

County officials have been asked to provide personal protective equipment, more training or staffing to help curb the spread of COVID-19 in those facilities, where the main reason for the spread is likely from employees who contract the virus off-site, Kim said.

Orange County’s adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 rose Tuesday to 30.3, up from 22.2 last week, with the positivity rate increasing from 8.8% to 10.6%.

The county’s Health Equity Quartile Positivity Rate, which measures the cases in highly affected, needier parts of the county, rose from 13% last week to 16.2% this week.

All of the county’s metrics now fall within the state’s most-restrictive, purple, tier of the four-tier coronavirus monitoring system.

“The number of ICU beds has reached capacity, however, the hospitals themselves have the ability through their surge plans to convert other equipment and beds into ICU beds,” said Riverside University Health System spokesman Jose Arballo.

Arballo said there are currently no plans to open up the county’s two federal medical facilities in Riverside and Indio, although he said the equipment remains stored at the sites if needed.

“We are confident that the hospitals have the ability when they get to this point to be able to add more capability to their facilities,” he said.

Orange County 8 hours ago

Orange County Sets Records for COVID-19 Daily Cases, Hospitalizations as Vaccines Set to Arrive

Donald Trump 12 hours ago

Second $1,200 Stimulus Checks Are Not in the New $908 Billion Relief Proposal. Some Are Calling for That to Change

Business 21 hours ago

Covid Live Updates: U.S. Death Toll Hits 300,000; New Virus Variant Spreading in UK

The ICU figure includes both COVID and non-COVID patients.

The aggregate number of coronavirus infections recorded since the public health documentation period began in early March was 119,691 as of Monday, compared to 112,950 on Friday, according to RUHS data. The number of deaths tied to COVID-19 rose to 1,586.

The RUHS reported 930 COVID-positive hospitalizations, up 121 from Friday. The number includes 184 patients being treated in intensive care units, up 14 from Friday. Both are records.

The county does not release updated coronavirus statistics on weekends.

Meanwhile, Riverside County officials announced that they anticipate the first shipments of the Pfizer vaccine to begin arriving in the region on Friday. Officials estimate the county will receive between 14,000 and 15,000 doses. Selected healthcare workers at the county’s acute care hospitals will be the first to receive the vaccine, which has been found to be 95% effective in preventing COVID-19, according to Pfizer and U.S. officials.

The number of known active virus cases countywide is 47,291, an increase of 5,504 compared to Friday. The active count is derived by subtracting deaths and recoveries from the current total — 119,691 — according to the county Executive Office.

The number of verified patient recoveries is 70,814. That figure has previously been underreported due to health officials not being able to confirm the status of patients in follow-up interviews.

Riverside County’s overall state-calculated positivity rate is 14.8%.

The 11-county Southern California region’s available ICU capacity dropped to 2.7% Monday.

The metric is a key indicator for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “regional stay-at-home” order, which went into effect just before midnight on Dec. 6 locally. The order was triggered when ICU bed availability across Southern California fell below 15%.

The mandate is slated to remain in effect until at least Dec. 28, when regions may be moved out of lockdown if bed capacity has recovered.

It impacts bars, theaters, museums, hair salons, indoor recreational facilities, amusement parks and wineries — all of which are supposed to remain closed. Restaurants are confined to takeout and delivery, with capacity limitations on retail outlets.

Noel Jesse Plata, 45, was found unresponsive in his cell at San Quentin State Prison before 4 a.m. and pronounced dead about a half-hour later despite employee’s attempt at life-saving measures and outside medical assistance, they said.

No foul play is suspected, but officials said his death is being investigated. The cause of death will be decided by a coroner.

coronavirus 13 hours ago

Amazon Dragged Its Feet on Covid-19 Worker Safety Probe, Says California AG, Asking for Court Order

Donald Trump 12 hours ago

Second $1,200 Stimulus Checks Are Not in the New $908 Billion Relief Proposal. Some Are Calling for That to Change

He and an accomplice, Ronald Tri Tran, were sentenced to death for the first-degree murder of Linda Park, 18. The two gang members tortured her into revealing where her family kept its valuables, then strangled her.

Plata was already in prison serving a sentence of life with the possibility of parole for another first-degree murder when he was convicted in Park’s slaying.

There are currently 710 people on California’s death row, the nation’s largest, though Gov. Gavin Newsom has imposed a moratorium on executions so long as he is governor.

The Constitution gives the electors the power to choose the president, and when all the votes are counted Monday, President-elect Joe Biden is expected to have 306 electoral votes, more than the 270 needed to elect a president, to 232 votes for President Donald Trump.

The spotlight on the process is even greater this year because Trump has refused to concede the election and continued to make baseless allegations of fraud. That makes the meeting of the Electoral College another solid, undeniable step toward Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, when Biden will be sworn in as president.

Some questions and answers about the Electoral College:

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?

In drafting the Constitution, America’s founders struggled with how the new nation should choose its leader and ultimately created the Electoral College system. It was a compromise between electing the president by popular vote and having Congress choose the president.

Under the Constitution, states get a number of electors equal to their total number of seats in Congress: two senators plus however many members the state has in the House of Representatives. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, states award all of their electoral college votes to the winner of the popular vote in their state.

WHAT’S THE BEEF WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?

The Electoral College has been the subject of criticism for more than two centuries. One often-repeated gripe: the person who wins the popular vote can nonetheless lose the presidential election. That happened twice in the last two decades — in 2000 with the election of George W. Bush and in 2016 when Donald Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes.

More Electoral College Coverage

Electoral College 22 hours ago

Biden Says ‘Democracy Prevailed' After Electoral College Makes His Win Official

Electoral College Dec 13

What the Electoral College Vote Means for Trump and Biden

Biden, for his part, won the popular vote and will end up with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. Trump was the fifth presidential candidate in American history to have lost the popular vote but won in the Electoral College.

WHO ARE THE ELECTORS?

Presidential electors typically are elected officials, political hopefuls or longtime party loyalists.

This year, they include South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Trump elector who could be a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, and Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, her party’s 2018 nominee for governor and a key player in Biden’s win in the state.

Among others are 93-year-old Paul “Pete” McCloskey, a Biden elector who is a former Republican congressman who challenged Richard Nixon for the 1972 GOP presidential nomination on a platform opposing the Vietnam War; Floridian Maximo Alvarez, an immigrant from Cuba who worried in his Republican convention speech that anarchy and communism would overrun Biden’s America, and Muhammad Abdurrahman, a Minnesotan who tried to cast his electoral vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton in 2016.

WHERE DO THEY MEET AND WHAT DO THEY DO?

The Electoral College doesn’t meet in one place. Instead, each state’s electors and the electors for the District of Columbia meet in a place chosen by their legislature, usually the state capitol.

The election is low tech. Electors cast their votes by paper ballot: one ballot for president and one for vice president. The votes get counted and the electors sign six certificates with the results. Each certificate gets paired with a certificate from the governor detailing the state’s vote totals.

Those six packets then get mailed to various people specified by law. The most important copy, though, gets sent to the president of the Senate, the current vice president. This is the copy that will be officially counted later.

DO ELECTORS HAVE TO VOTE FOR THE CANDIDATE WHO WON THEIR STATE?

In 32 states and the District of Columbia, laws require electors to vote for the popular-vote winner. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld this arrangement in July. Electors almost always vote for the state winner anyway, because they generally are devoted to their political party.

A bit of an exception happened in 2016 when 10 electors tried to vote for other candidates. Those included people pledged to support Clinton who decided not to back her in a futile bid to get Republican electors to abandon Trump and choose someone else as president.

Abdurrahman, the Minnesotan who wanted to vote for Sanders, was replaced as an elector. This year, he has said he will cast his vote for Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Once the electoral votes are cast, they are sent to Congress, where both houses will convene on Jan. 6 for a session presided over by Vice President Mike Pence. The envelopes from each state and the District of Columbia will be opened and the votes tallied.

If at least one member of each house objects in writing to some electoral votes, the House and Senate meet separately to debate the issue. Both houses must vote to sustain the objection for it to matter, and the Democratic-led House is unlikely to go along with any objections to votes for Biden. Otherwise, the votes get counted as intended by the states.

And then there’s one more step: inauguration.

WASHINGTON — The Electoral College voted Monday to cement President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election.

The ballots were cast throughout the day by individual electors in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and they mirror their state’s popular vote.

Shortly before 5:30 p.m. ET, California electors cast their 55 votes for Biden, pushing him over the crucial threshold of 270 electoral votes. At approximately 7:15 p.m., Hawaii cast the final 4 electoral votes of the day for Biden, who won 306 total electoral votes. Trump won 232 votes.

Biden plans to address the nation on Monday night, where he will emphasize that “the integrity of our elections remains intact.”

“And so, now it is time to turn the page. To unite. To heal,” Biden will say, according to speech excerpts released by the transition.

The Electoral College vote is typically a formality, occurring more than a month after Election Day votes are cast. But Trump’s unprecedented legal and legislative efforts to overturn the election results this year have imparted a greater significance upon the proceedings.

The president, his campaign and his political allies have filed dozens of lawsuits since Election Day, asking federal and state courts to nullify the election results based on myriad unsubstantiated claims of irregularities.

These efforts repeatedly failed, prompting the president to shift tactics in early December and begin personally pressuring Republican state legislators to intervene in the selection of individual electors. So far, this too has failed.

Yet Trump continues to falsely claim that he, not Biden, is the legitimate winner of the November election and that he was the victim of a massive, coordinated nationwide conspiracy to alter votes in Biden’s favor.

In Pennsylvania (below) and Arizona, two key swing states that Biden won, Trump supporters convened Monday outside their state capitols to protest the electoral college vote.

In Michigan, electors received police escorts amid threats of violence at the state capitol. A Republican state representative was stripped of his committee assignments by GOP leaders Monday after refusing to rule out that violence would occur in the capital of Lansing during the electoral vote.

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans fearful of angering their Trump-loving constituents have largely fallen in step behind the president and refused to acknowledge Biden’s victory.

Once electors have formally recorded their votes for president and vice president, the next major event in the Electoral College process is a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, during which both chambers will officially count the electoral votes.

Vice President Mike Pence is expected to preside over the Jan. 6 proceedings in his formal role as president of the Senate, a job which also includes announcing the results.

Any objections in Congress to the electoral votes must be submitted in writing and signed by at least one member of the House and one senator. If an objection arises, the two chambers consider the objection separately.

Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks has already said he will challenge the results of the Electoral College count in the House. In the Senate, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has not ruled out filing a similar objection.

But not all Republicans approve of Brooks’ plan to jam up the electoral count in a bid to challenge results that is sure to fail. And several Republican senators who have yet to publicly acknowledge Biden’s win have indicated that they will accept the results of Monday’s vote in the Electoral College as the final judgment on the 2020 presidential election.

Still, the denial of Biden’s victory by some Republicans in Congress is likely to stretch into January and beyond.

In a Washington Post survey of all 249 congressional Republicans, published Dec. 6, only 27 said they accepted Biden as the legitimately elected president. Another 220 GOP lawmakers gave an unclear answer or did not respond, and two, Brooks and Rep. Paul A. Gosar of Arizona, said they believed Trump was the rightful winner of the election.

Ever since Election Day, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have largely tried to stay above the fray of Trump’s increasingly desperate campaign to overturn the results.

While a small team of Biden campaign lawyers monitors Trump’s lawsuits, the former vice president is charging ahead with a formal transition process, announcing his nominees for his incoming Cabinet and laying out a plan to aggressively combat the coronavirus pandemic during his first 100 days in office.

Biden and Harris are set to be sworn into office as president and vice president of the United States on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.

The conference’s North Division winner, the Washington Huskies, have been pulled from the game due to COVID-19 cases that left the team without enough eligible players to compete, the conference announced Monday.

So now the Trojans will take on the Oregon Ducks, which finished just behind Washington in the North Division. Fifty-three scholarship players are needed, and the Huskies also were below the number required for a specific position requirement.

Washington’s athletic director issued a statement expressing disappointment. The unusual, but not unexpected, development seemed a possibility after Washington had to cancel last week’s game against Oregon.

“I am crushed for our student-athletes, coaches and staff who have worked tirelessly to find a healthy way to compete this season,” UW Athletic Director Jennifer Cohen said in a statement. “Husky student-athletes come to Washington to compete for championships, so this one really hurts for everyone involved — our students, our coaches and our community of loyal Husky fans and alumni. Our football program has battled through adversity all year during these challenging times, and I am so disappointed they won’t have the opportunity to play and represent the University of Washington in the Pac-12 Championship Game Friday night.”

The Trojans (5-0) finished a brief regular season with a comeback win Saturday over UCLA.

An important decision is expected this week on whether the monarch butterfly, facing a global extinction crisis, should receive federal designation as a threatened species.

Increased use of farm herbicides, climate change and destruction of milkweed plants on which they depend have caused a massive decline of the orange-and-black butterflies, which long have flitted over meadows, gardens and wetlands across the U.S. The drop-off that started in the mid-1990s has spurred a preservation campaign involving schoolchildren, homeowners and landowners, conservation groups, governments and businesses.

Some contend those efforts are enough to save the monarch without federal regulation. But environmental groups say protection under the Endangered Species Act is essential — particularly for populations in the West, where last year fewer than 30,000 remained of the millions that spent winters in California’s coastal groves during the 1980s.

This year’s count, though not yet official, is expected to show only about 2,000 there, said Sarina Jepsen, director of the endangered species program at the Xerces Society conservation group.

“We may be witnessing the collapse of the of the monarch population in the West,” Jepsen said.

Scientists separately estimate up to an 80% monarch decline since the mid-1990s in the eastern U.S., although numbers there have shown a recent uptick.

The Trump administration has rolled back protections for endangered and threatened species in its push for deregulation, even as the United Nations says 1 million species — one of every eight on Earth — face extinction because of climate change, development and other human causes.

Monterey Nov 26

Escape to “Butterfly Town, U.S.A.”

Nature Sep 21

Wings'll Flutter Further at the Natural History Museum

Under a court agreement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must respond by Tuesday to a 2014 petition from conservation groups on behalf of the monarch.

The agency could propose or decline to list the butterfly as threatened, which means likely to become in danger of extinction within the foreseeable future throughout all or much of its range. Or it could find that a such listing is deserved but other species have a higher priority, which might delay action indefinitely.

A recommendation to designate the butterfly as threatened would be followed by a yearlong period to take public comment and reach a final decision.

Listing it “would guarantee that the monarch would get a comprehensive recovery plan and ongoing funding,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The monarch is so threatened that this is the only prudent thing to do.”

If the status is granted, federal agencies would have to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service about potential harm to monarchs from actions proposed for government funding or permitting, such as expanding interstate highways. The service would prescribe other measures in a regulation tailored specifically for the butterfly.

Orley “Chip” Taylor, an insect ecologist at the University of Kansas, agreed the butterfly’s long-term prognosis is grim but said he opposes a federal listing for now, fearing it would sour many rural residents on helping the monarch.

“There’s a palpable fear of regulation out there,” he said, adding that voluntary measures should be given additional time.

Monarchs in southern Canada and the eastern U.S. migrate by the millions to mountainous areas of Mexico each winter, while those west of the continental divide head to coastal California. They congregate so thickly in forests that scientists can estimate their numbers through aerial inspections of trees with an orange hue.

Worsening droughts are reducing the number that survive the journey south for winter, Taylor said, while rising temperatures prompt the butterflies to leave their wintering grounds too soon, damaging reproduction. As the forests dry out, wildfire risk worsens.

If habitat losses and climate change aren’t slowed, “we aren’t going to have a monarch migration in 30 years,” Taylor said.

Environmental groups say 165 million acres of monarch habitat — an area the size of Texas — have been lost in the past 20 years to development or herbicide applications in cropland. They point to heavy farm use of Round Up, or glyphosate, in particular.

Genetically modified corn and soybeans can withstand the poisons, but they wipe out milkweed, on which the butterflies lay their eggs. Caterpillars feed only on milkweed leaves, while adults eat nectar from their flowers and pollinate the plants.

Federal protection for the monarch would draw stiff resistance from agriculture groups concerned that habitat protection rules might interfere with farm operations.

Milkweed can reduce crop yields and sicken livestock that eat it, “so farmers have spent decades trying to get rid of it,” said Laura Campbell of the Michigan Farm Bureau, which has participated in a statewide monarch recovery program. “It’s a hard sell to tell farmers, ‘Hey, you need to start planting milkweed again.’”

Some farmers and ranchers have planted milkweed on lands set aside for conservation. Numerous organizations and individuals are working to restore monarch habitat, focusing on backyard gardens as well as highway and utility corridors.

“But a lot is happening that’s taking away habitat at the same time,” said Karen Oberhauser, a restoration ecologist and arboretum director at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “It’s like we’re running fast but staying in the same place.”

Twenty-five years ago, the 6-year-old son of a chemist named Jim Edward just happened to catch a monarch tagged by Oberhauser’s researchers, when the butterfly wandered into Edward’s yard in Minnesota.

Since then, captivated by the butterfly and its complex migration over generations, Edward has raised monarchs to tell and show hundreds of school groups about the unending migrations.

“Just the exposure of kids to that, that don’t necessarily get to see” wildlife otherwise, he said. “Their enthusiasm, their joy, their ‘oh, wowness’ — to see that.”

Some enthusiasts fear they could no longer harvest eggs and raise monarchs if the species gains federal protections. Curry said her group has recommended that careful, small-scale, noncommercial raising be allowed.

Sheila Naylor, a substitute teacher near Sedalia, Mo., says the chance discovery of a milkweed plant in her yard five years ago inspired a quest to grow the monarch’s host plant in every available inch of yard and roadside.

She visits the Missouri state fair, schools and elder care homes, pleading the case for preserving monarch and other native butterflies.

“I push myself,” Naylor said, “because the butterflies keep me going.”

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Los Angeles Unified School District campuses would be an ideal setting for administering COVID-19 vaccines to students and their families, Superintendent Austin Beutner said Monday, while again imploring elected officials to provide financial support for schools to prepare for an eventual return to in-person instruction.

Noting that more than 230,000 COVID-19 tests have been conducted on school campuses, Beutner said the campuses are geographically positioned to provide access to the vaccine — first to essential school workers and eventually to students and families.

“The country faces an enormous challenge in making sure the vaccine is made available to essential workers, like the staff who work in our schools as well as those who have been most impacted by the virus: low-income communities of color like those served by our schools,” Beutner said in an address to the school community. “Health experts will need to answer the question of how to provide
people with access to the vaccine, including shipping and distributing the vaccine, and training clinical staff to properly administer it.

“Schools may be a good answer to the question of where the vaccine can best be
provided.”

Beutner said LAUSD is organized around 42 groupings of schools that each serve a local community. Within each community, there are several hundred thousand people, he said.

Coronavirus Deaths in Your City and State — and Across the US

These charts use daily coronavirus death data from Johns Hopkins University to show the seven-day moving average of deaths at the city, state and country level.

The impact of coronavirus varies enormously in the United States from one place to another.

Source: Johns Hopkins University.
Credit: Visuals by Amy O’Kruk/NBC, data analysis by Ron Campbell/NBC

“It makes sense to provide the vaccine to students and their families at a place they trust, where they are almost every day — their local neighborhood school,” he said.

Beutner and the top school administrators in New York and Chicago had an op-ed in The Washington Post over the weekend, repeating Beutner’s call for a “Marshall Plan” — the coordinated relief effort for Western Europe following World War II — for supporting schools as they look to return to in-person instruction once the pandemic eases.

Beutner said there has been a great deal of attention to the pandemic’s impact on hospitals, emergency rooms, businesses and the overall economy.

vaccine 14 hours ago

When Dr. Fauci and Other Experts Say You Can Expect to Get Vaccinated for COVID-19

coronavirus pandemic 14 hours ago

Democrats Squeezed as COVID-19 Relief Talks Continue

“There’s not been enough media coverage or attention paid to the plight of children during this crisis,” he said. “Not just their struggles with online education, but the impact this is having on their social and emotional wellbeing. This issue too is very real. There’s an old saying: `Just because you can’t measure something, doesn’t mean it’s not important.’ This is even more important when it comes to children. Their wellness can’t be easily measured. They lack voice in the conversation … but their needs are very real.”

Beutner shared a bit of good news amid the pandemic, saying the Class of 2020 had a record-high graduation rate of 82.9%, something he called a remarkable accomplishment. But he stressed that the ongoing pandemic and issues with online learning will impact future graduation rates.

It’s not uncommon in California for residents to seek recalls but they rarely get on the ballot — and even fewer succeed. Several launched against Newsom faded but another attempt is drawing greater attention as his fortunes change while he enters a critical stretch in his governorship.

Newsom received high praise for his aggressive approach to the coronavirus last spring, when he issued the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order. Now there is growing public angst over subsequent health orders that have shuttered schools and businesses and a massive unemployment benefits fraud scandal, while a public shaming continues for his ill-advised dinner at the French Laundry in Napa Valley, an establishment that features a white truffle and caviar dinner for $1,200 per person.

Photos of the dinner — a birthday party for a Newsom confidante who also is a lobbyist — emerged showing the governor without a mask at a time when he was imploring people not to socialize with friends and wear a face covering when going out and around others.

Recall organizers say they have collected more than half the nearly 1.5 million petition signatures needed to place the recall on the ballot, and they have until mid-March to hit the required threshold.

Randy Economy, a senior adviser to the recall effort, said there was a surge of several hundred thousand petition signatures after Newsom’s restaurant debacle last month. “It has resonated. It’s about the arrogance of power,” he said.

Newsom appears to be getting on campaign footing. He has hired veteran Capitol insider Jim DeBoo as a senior adviser, which could help him repair frayed relationships with legislators and bring sharper political instincts to his office. Newsom also just named Dee Dee Myers, a former Warner Bros. executive and White House press secretary for President Bill Clinton, as director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.

The prospect of a recall election is reviving memories of California’s circus-like 2003 recall, in which voters installed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor after deposing the unpopular Democrat Gray Davis. There were 135 candidates on the ballot, including Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and former child actor Gary Coleman.

If the recall qualifies, Newsom would be forced to fend off rivals in the midst of a pandemic that has cost the state millions of jobs, cored government budgets and upended life for nearly 40 million residents.

The campaign could sap his focus just as the state manages the complex project of vaccinating millions of residents while rebuilding its virus-wounded economy. California continues to deal with other risks, from deadly wildfires to a homelessness crisis in big cities.

“He’s got a plate of Biblical plagues staring him in the face,” said Garry South, who was Davis’ chief political adviser.

Still, South sees Newsom in a far stronger position to survive a challenge compared to the political climate 17 years ago when Davis was pushed out. A Republican hasn’t won a statewide race in California in 14 years, and there is no Hollywood superstar emerging as a potential candidate.

“A recall (election) is never good, obviously,” South said. But “the Republicans are in a far weaker position” than in 2003.

For the telegenic, 53-year-old Newsom, a recall election could unsettle a political ascendancy that many see aimed for the White House. A closer-than-expected race could hurt the former San Francisco mayor’s national profile as well as make him look vulnerable for 2022, when he is expected to seek a second term.

Newsom’s challenging year already has encouraged Republicans who have signaled they are likely candidates, including former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Newsom’s 2018 rival, businessman John Cox.

Recall organizer Orrin Heatlie, a retired county sheriff’s sergeant, predicted they would gather the needed signatures, though added an infusion of cash would help.

State records show just under 300,000 signatures have been filed, though Economy said another 500,000 are in the pipeline with county election officials.

The group began gathering signatures in June and have about three months to hit the required 1,495,709 signatures. They will need a surplus since some signatures are sure to be disqualified.

The 2003 recall took off after Republican U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, a car-alarm magnate, poured $1.7 million of his fortune into the campaign to get the proposal on the ballot.

Organizers this year estimate they would need $2.8 million to hire professionals to gather another 800,000 signatures, at a price of $3.50 each.

State records show Cox donated $50,000 to the recall campaign in October, but at this point he has no plans to invest more.

“I’m not going to be Darrell Issa,” he said. “If there were a whole bunch of other people that stepped up and helped, I’d probably help some more.”

If he faces a recall, Newsom would have advantages. He would have no donation limits on his fundraising, opening the way for a record flood of cash to defend his seat. Democrats have a nearly 2-to-1 advantage in registered voters.

The potential election could also increase the chances he picks longtime friend and Secretary of State Alex Padilla to fill the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Facing uncertainty, Newsom needs a loyalist in Washington who will embrace his priorities, including securing federal funds for the virus and wildfires.

Newsom’s advisers are carefully watching the signature count and depict the effort as a President Donald Trump-inspired tactic to alter the election calendar in hopes of gaining political advantage.

Voters, they say, want the governor to remain focused on the pandemic.

“There are a lot of ambitious Republicans who want to be governor but would rather not play by the rules,” Newsom political strategist Dan Newman said.

State Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks said in a statement that “the California Republican Party continues to demonstrate how disconnected they are from the plight and pain of working families.”

If it qualifies, state rules are not specific on when the election would occur. Recall organizers hope the date would be scheduled in July or August.

Former top Davis aide Susan Kennedy warned that “you just can’t underestimate the depth of people’s anger” but added that Newsom has time to recast his legacy.

“He will be defined not by the shutdowns and not by the crisis, he will be defined by the vaccine distribution and the recovery,” she said.

Critical care nurse Sandra Lindsay was the first person in the U.S. to receive the vaccine.

“I feel hopeful today. Relieved,” Lindsay said after getting a shot in the arm at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York.

“This is the light at the end of the tunnel. But it’s a long tunnel,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said as he watched Lindsay’s vaccination via video.

The first of many freezer-packed COVID-19 vaccine vials made their way to distribution sites across the United States on Monday, as the nation’s pandemic deaths surpassed the horrifying new milestone of 300,000.

The rollout of the Pfizer vaccine, the first to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, ushers in the biggest vaccination effort in U.S. history — one that health officials hope the American public will embrace, even as some have voiced initial skepticism or worry.

Quick transport is key for the vaccine, especially since this one must be stored at extremely low temperatures — about 94 degrees below zero.

More of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will arrive each week. And later this week, the FDA will decide whether to green light the world’s second rigorously studied COVID-19 vaccine, made by Moderna Inc.

Now the hurdle is to rapidly get vaccine into the arms of millions, not just doctors and nurses but other at-risk health workers such as janitors and food handlers — and then deliver a second dose three weeks later.

More Coronavirus Vaccine Coverage

coronavirus Dec 11

Coronavirus Vaccine 101: When and Where Can I Get a Shot? Is It Safe? Is It Free?

MRNA Dec 11

How Does the Pfizer BioNTech Coronavirus Vaccine Work?

“We’re also in the middle of a surge, and it’s the holidays, and our health care workers have been working at an extraordinary pace,” said Sue Mashni, chief pharmacy officer at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City.

Plus, the shots can cause temporary fever, fatigue and aches as they rev up people’s immune systems, forcing hospitals to stagger employee vaccinations.

A wary public will be watching closely to see whether health workers embrace vaccination. Just half of Americans say they want to get vaccinated, while about a quarter don’t and the rest are unsure, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Health Research.

Early Sunday, workers at Pfizer — dressed in fluorescent yellow clothing, hard hats and gloves — wasted no time as they packed vials into boxes. They scanned the packages and then placed them into freezer cases with dry ice. The vaccines were then taken from Pfizer’s Portage, Michigan, facility to Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, where the first cargo plane took off amid what airport officials called a “jubilant” mood.

“This is a historic day,” said Richard W. Smith, who oversees operations in the Americas for FedEx Express, which is delivering 630-some packages of vaccine to distribution sites across the country. United Parcel Service also is transporting a share of the vaccine.

Helping with the transport of the vaccine has special meaning to Bruce Smith, a FedEx package handler at the Grand Rapids airport, whose older sister, Queen, died after she contracted the coronavirus in May. She was hospitalized in Georgia one day after he saw her on a video chat, and they never spoke again.

“I think she would be ecstatic to know that something that has ravaged our family — that a family member is going to be part of such a big project,” said Smith, 58, whose nephew, Queen’s son, also got sick and is still undergoing therapy for stroke-like symptoms. “It is very, very important.”

Tracked with GPS-enabled sensors, the initial shipments were expected to contain about 3 million doses, with many more to come. Federal officials say the first shipments of Pfizer’s vaccine will be staggered, arriving in 145 distribution centers Monday, with another 425 sites getting shipments Tuesday, and the remaining 66 on Wednesday. Doses of the vaccine, co-developed by German partner BioNTech, are given out based on each state’s adult population. Then the states decide where they go first.

In California, where health care workers will be among the first to be vaccinated, state health officials are prioritizing hospitals that have adequate storage capacity, serve high-risk populations and have the ability to vaccinate people quickly.

Initial surveys have found that even some health care workers don’t want to be first in line. Dr. Graham Snyder, who’s led the vaccine task force at Pennsylvania health care giant UPMC, estimates that about half of its employees are willing to get the vaccine as soon as it’s offered.

But many health officials expect enthusiasm to grow.

“There’s that thought that maybe they don’t have to be so afraid to come to work if they can be vaccinated and be immune,” said Dr. Sandra Kemmerly, medical director of hospital quality at the 40-hospital Oschner Health System in Louisiana and Mississippi. Employees approved for the first round are getting texts and emails directing them to schedule their initial injection, she said. Enough vaccine is being saved so that each person who gets the first dose of vaccine can get a second required shot a few weeks later.

Senior U.S. government officials, including some White House officials who work in close proximity to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, are among those who will be offered coronavirus vaccines as soon as this week, two people familiar with the matter confirmed.

A survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about half of Americans want to get the vaccine as soon as possible. Another quarter aren’t sure, while the remaining quarter say they aren’t interested. Some simply oppose vaccines in general. Others are concerned that the vaccines have been rushed and want to see how the rollout goes.

Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the FDA, which approved the Pfizer vaccine Friday, has repeatedly insisted that the agency’s decision was based on science, not politics, despite a White House threat to fire him if the vaccine wasn’t approved before Saturday.

Speaking to Fox News Sunday, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief science adviser to Operation Warp Speed, a U.S. effort to get vaccines developed quickly, also said he is “very concerned” about the skepticism about the vaccine in some circles.

“Unfortunately … there’s been a confusion between how thorough and scientific and factual the work that has been done is, and the perception that people are thinking that we cut corners …,” Slaoui said. “I can guarantee you that no such things have happened, that we follow the science.”

He called the development of vaccines from several pharmaceutical companies, including Moderna and AstraZeneca, “a remarkable achievement of science, academia, the industry ecosystem and the U.S. government, working together.”

While the vaccine was determined to be safe, regulators in the U.K. are investigating several severe allergic reactions. The FDA’s instructions tell providers not to give it to those with a known history of severe allergic reactions to any of its ingredients.

The Moderna vaccine will be reviewed by an expert panel Thursday and soon afterward could be allowed for public use.

—-

Irvine reported from Chicago. Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

A smoke advisory remains in effect through Monday afternoon due to the Sanderson Fire, reported at 1 a.m. Sunday near the intersection of La Borde Canyon Road and Jack Rabbit Trail. The fire exploded in size partly because it was burning in a hard-to-reach spot and the windy conditions in the area, fire officials said.

An evacuation warning was issued Sunday morning for homes north of Gilman Springs Road and south of Timothy Lane, including Jerry Street, McGehee Drive, Alberta Lane, Laurene Lane, Lisa Lane and Kevin Road.

The warning impacted fewer than a dozen homes and was lifted at 12:45
p.m., fire officials said.

The fire also prompted the closure of Gilman Springs Road between Alessandro Boulevard and Bridge Street.

Three water-dropping helicopters and four air tankers were assisting
the 130 firefighters battling the blaze on the ground.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued a smoke advisory through Monday afternoon, warning that smoke from the fire was negatively affecting air quality and was moving west toward Moreno Valley, Temescal Valley, Corona, Chino Valley and Anaheim.

Officials in Anaheim, Fullerton and Brea reported that smoke from the fire was visible Sunday, with the Fullerton Police Department receiving numerous 911 calls regarding the smell of smoke and ash in the Fullerton area. The officials stressed that there was no wildfire in Orange County.

Sanderson Fire Dec 13

Firefighters Making Headway on Sanderson Fire, Evacuation Warning Lifted

amtrak Dec 10

Traveling on The Pacific Surfliner This Holiday Season? You'll Need a Reservation

coronavirus Dec 12

California Hospitals Prepare to Get First Vaccine Doses

A recent report from Apartmentguide.com calculated the top 10 metro areas where the cost of living has dropped the most during the pandemic. To conduct the findings, the website looked at cost of living data (including groceries, housing, utility, transportation and healthcare) from The Council for Community and Economic Research from Q1 2020 (Jan. 1 to March 31) and compared it to data from Q3 2020 (July 1 to Sept. 30).

Here are the top cities where the cost of living has gotten cheaper since March, according to Apartmentguide.com‘s report.

1. Palm Coast, Florida

In Palm Coast-Flagler County, Florida, which is 40 minutes North of Daytona Beach, the overall cost of living has dropped by 3.4%. In particular, the cost of groceries is down 13.7%, and housing is down 2.2%. The area is known for its saltwater and freshwater canals, beaches and the Intracoastal Waterway. 

2. Johnson City, Tennessee

Located near the Tennessee-North Carolina border, Johnson City, Tennessee has seen its overall cost of living drop by 3.3%. The cost of groceries is down 12.6%, and housing is down 3.1%, according to Apartment.com. With lots of rivers and mountains, Johnson City is also home to East Tennessee State University.

3. Huntsville, Alabama

In Huntsville, located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, the overall cost of living has dropped by 3.1%, with housing down 4.8% and transportation costs down 7.4%. US News and World Report voted Huntsville one of the top 10 best places to live in America in 2018.

4. Casper, Wyoming

Located about two and a half hours from Cheyenne, Casper has seen its overall cost of living drop by 3%, with the cost of groceries down 8.5% and housing down 5%, according to Apartment.com. The area’s history centers around oil and cowboys, an it’s the second-largest city in the state. In 2010, Forbes named Casper on of the “Best Small Cities to Raise a Family.”

5. Joliet-Will County, Illinois

About 30 miles from Chicago is Joliet-Will County, Illinois, where the overall cost of living has dropped by 3%. In particular, the cost of groceries is down 7.7% and housing is down 4.5%.The area is known as one of the fastest-growing southwestern Chicago commuter suburbs, and it’s home to music venues and two casinos.

6. Minot, North Dakota

Minot’s cost of living has dropped by 3%, with groceries down 4.3% and housing is down 5.7.%.The area, About two hours from Bismarck, Minot is known for the North Dakota State Fair (in non-Covid times).

7. Sussex County, Delaware

In Sussex County, which is home to Rehoboth Beach, the overall cost of living has dropped by 3%. Groceries costs are down 9.4% and transportation costs 1.2%. But housing there is actually up 3.6%. Sussex is centrally located to several cities: It’s 90 minutes from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. and about two hours from Philadelphia.

8. Stockton, California

In Stockton, which is about 83 miles from San Francisco, the overall cost of living has dropped by 3%. The cost of groceries is down 11% and housing is down 3.4 %. Stockton has one of the country’s youngest mayors, Michael Tubbs, and is the location of a current universal basic income experiment, with one in four people there living in poverty in 2019.

9. Bakersfield, California

In Bakersfield, California, which is about two hours north of Los Angeles, the overall cost of living has dropped by 2.9%. In particular, the cost of groceries is down 6.8% and housing is down 2%, according to Apartment.com. Bakersfield was once considered a “pass through” city, but before the pandemic it was attracting young people and businesses, helping spur a downtown revival.

10. Montgomery, Alabama

State capital Montgomery’s overall cost of living has dropped by 2.9%, with housing costs down 6.3% and transportation costs down 4%. The area is known as an epicenter in the civil rights movement, where Rosa Parks was jailed after refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in 1955.

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that Rehoboth Beach is located in Sussex County, Delaware.

 McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc’s former California ranch on sale for $29 million—take a look inside

 Don’t miss: Here are the 5 best personal loans of December 2020

Statewide, more than 30,000 confirmed coronavirus cases were reported Sunday, making California’s total at 1,551,766. Millions of Californians in the majority of the state are under stay-at-home orders.

In Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, more than 4,000 people were hospitalized for COVID-19, according to figures released Sunday afternoon. More than one-fifth of hospitalized patients are in intensive care units.

The county’s new figures break the previous record set only the day before, with 3,850 patients in a hospital, and follows the trend of hospitalizations increasing nearly every day since Nov. 1.

LA County Health Director Barbara Ferrer warned on Monday — when hospitalizations were 2,988 — that the county could see the statistic to climb to 4,000 within two weeks. It happened in six days.

In San Francisco County, health officials reported 323 new cases on Saturday, the highest number of new coronavirus infections there yet. San Francisco emerged as a leader in the state’s response to the pandemic early on but has since moved to battling its own cases.

The record-breaking figures in Los Angeles and San Francisco counties come as more than 325,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine are on the way to California.

The first shipments of the Pfizer vaccine left Michigan early Sunday for 145 distribution centers nationwide. States will get vaccines based on their adult population and additional shipments are coming this week.

The vaccine is heading to hospitals and other sites across the country that can store it at extremely low temperatures — about 94 degrees below zero. Pfizer is using containers with dry ice and GPS-enabled sensors to ensure each shipment stays colder than the weather in Antarctica.

In California, counties will have specific allotments that will be distributed to hospitals determined by state health officials to have adequate storage capacity, serve a high-risk health care population and have the ability to vaccinate people quickly. Priority will be to inoculate health care workers on the front lines of a pandemic that has infected more than 16 million people and claimed nearly 298,000 lives in the U.S. alone.

Represented in those U.S. deaths include a disproportionate number of people of color.

In Santa Clara County in Northern California, volunteers have begun a door-to-door coronavirus testing pilot program in a majority Latino community that has become a virus hot spot. Officials started handing out self-testing kits in the East San Jose neighborhood of Silicon Valley’s San Jose last week, where 55% of the population is Latino and officials say many residents cannot easily access testing sites.

But for many, the vaccines are still out of reach. The priority will be for health care workers to be inoculated first.

Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted that a group of medical experts convened by Western states met Saturday to discuss the vaccine and confirm that it is safe for public use. Newsom said distribution could begin as early as Sunday.

Medical facilities at military bases in Alameda and San Diego will be among the first sites to receive vaccines, the U.S. Department of Defense announced earlier this month.

The vaccines are coming as the situation grows more dire by the day nationwide and in California, with the holiday season well underway. Public health officials are afraid the already surging infection rates and hospitalizations will continue to climb as people ignore precautions to gather for the holidays.

On Saturday, the number of available ICU beds in San Joaquin Valley plummeted to zero for the first time.

Sheriff Alex Villanueva suspended the deputies on Monday, according to Deputy Shawn Du Busky of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

“When you’re relieved of duty, they usually take your badge and firearm so you’re unable to do any police action pending the end of the investigation,” Du Busky told City News Service.

Andres Guardado Dec 2

Rep. Waters to Formally Request Federal Investigation Into Sheriff's Deputy Killing of Andres Guardado

Andres Guardado Sep 2

LA County Calls for Inquest Into Guardado Shooting, Moves to Sue Sheriff's Department

The investigation is related to a traffic collision that occurred on April 13, Du Busky said, but he could not provide further information while the investigation is ongoing.

Deputy Miguel Vega, the deputy that shot Guardado in June, was driving a patrol vehicle about 5 p.m. on April 13 with a suspect in the backseat, when he pursued a man on a bicycle and crashed the patrol vehicle in an alley near Mona Boulevard and 130th Street in Willowbrook, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Vega was following the bicyclist because he believed he had a firearm, and when the bicyclist was about 30 feet ahead, Vega sped up and crashed into a concrete wall and a parked car, according to The Times.

The man in the backseat of the patrol vehicle sustained minor injuries. He told investigators Vega accelerated to between 55 and 60 mph, while Vega reported that he accelerated to between 30 and 35 mph, The Times reported.

Chris Hernandez, the other deputy involved in Guardado’s death, was suspended in connection with the collision, but it was not immediately clear how he was involved.

The FBI, Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, and the Office of the Inspector General are monitoring the investigation, according to Du Busky.

The deputies were involved in the sheriff’s department’s June 18 killing of Guardado, who was fatally shot when he was running from authorities while working as an informal security guard at an auto shop near Gardena.

The killing led to a coroner’s office inquest — the first in Los Angeles County in over 30 years — into the death.

The inquest’s hearing officer, retired California Court of Appeals Justice Candace D. Cooper, has not made findings related to Guardado’s cause and manner of death.

Alphabet’s Google suffered a worldwide outage Monday that took several services including YouTube, Gmail and Google Drive offline.

Service has since been restored, according to Google. The company’s Workspace Status Dashboard shows all of its services are now back up and running as normal.

Several people on social media reported issues with the platforms Monday morning, with Gmail, YouTube and Google Drive all showing error messages without further explanation.

According to Down Detector, a site that aggregates reports of online service outages, problems with the platforms spiked at around 6:30 a.m. ET.

Google later confirmed the outage, saying it was the result of an internal issue rather than a cyber attack.

“Today, at 3.47AM PT Google experienced an authentication system outage for approximately 45 minutes due to an internal storage quota issue,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC.

“Services requiring users to log in experienced high error rates during this period. The authentication system issue was resolved at 4:32AM PT.”

The spokesperson added: “All services are now restored. We apologise to everyone affected, and we will conduct a thorough follow up review to ensure this problem cannot recur in the future.”

Some of the largest companies in the U.S. rely on Google services, including Uber, Netflix and Twitter.

The health insurance marketplace announced Friday that it is taking the “unprecedented step” of giving residents until Dec. 30 to sign up for coverage that will begin on Jan. 1. Prior to the extension, the deadline was scheduled for Tuesday,

“No one should wait to sign up, and we are extending the deadline through Dec. 30 to give all of us more time to spread the word and make sure our family and friends have health insurance during this pandemic,” Covered California’s executive director, Peter Lee, said in a statement.

Covered California urges all residents to ignore outdated television, radio and print ads that state Dec. 15 is the deadline to sign up.

Those who sign up by the extended deadline are required to pay their first bill in order for their coverage to take effect. According to the health insurance company, about 1.2 million uninsured Californians are eligible for financial assistance through Covered California or qualify for low-cost or no-cost coverage through Medi-Cal.

For more information on how to apply for Covered California, click here.

A significant outage struck Google’s platforms globally Monday morning, taking down YouTube, Gmail and a host of other popular services for about an hour.

Users encountered error messages any time they tried to access the affected services, which also included productivity tools like Docs and Sheets, smart home services like Nest and educational tools like Google Classroom.

DownDetector showed a massive spike in outages on all major Google products starting just after 6:30 a.m. ET. Just over an hour later, users started reporting that services were loading normally again. By 9 a.m. ET Google said its products and services were working normally.

Technology blog TechCrunch reported similar outages were seen in countries around the world starting at roughly the same time.

One major global media company robocalled all of its employees via an emergency alerting system to notify them of the outage (and to tell them not to call the corporate IT helpdesk).

The cause was not immediately clear, though it appeared to potentially be tied to Google Accounts, as some people reported being able to access some services when in Incognito Mode in the Chrome web browser.

Google’s status hub acknowledged an outage across its products.

“The problem with Classroom should be resolved for the vast majority of affected users. We will continue to work towards restoring service for the remaining affected users, but no further updates will be provided on the Google Workspace Status Dashboard. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better,” the company posted at 7:52 a.m. ET.

Other product pages had similar messages.

Initial allocations of COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Southern California Sunday night, marking a major milestone in the nation’s largest vaccination effort.

California anticipates delivery of about 327,000 doses in the first round. In Los Angeles County, roughly 83,000 doses could be received, welcomed news in a region that has seen staggering increases in case counts, fatalities and hospitalizations.

Here’s what happens next, keys to vaccine distribution and other frequently asked questions.

Note: This page will be updated as more details about vaccine distribution become available.

Who will get the vaccine first?

In California, priority will go to healthcare workers on the pandemic’s front lines and long-term care residents. Priority phases are developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and with guidance from the California Department of Public Health.

Health care workers are deemed a top priority in receiving vaccinations in what is known as “Phase 1a” of the CDC-determined distribution plan. Los Angeles County will distribute the initial wave of doses to acute-care hospitals. Vaccines for long-term care staff and residents will be distributed via a federal contract with CVS and Walgreens.

That first group will be followed by essential workers. Beyond the high priority groups, California officials have not yet outlined who will be next in line for vaccines.

coronavirus Dec 10

Coronavirus Vaccines Will Get GPS Tracking and Flight Priority, UPS, FedEx Say

coronavirus Dec 10

Walmart Prepares to Administer Covid Vaccines at Stores Across the U.S.

Will there be enough for all health workers?

No, not in this first allocation. In LA County, vaccines will be distributed to a total of 83 hospitals for administration to staff members, but providing shots for all will take time.

When will more allocations arrive?

Los Angeles County hopes to receive a second allocation of vaccines by Dec. 21, with priority expanding to include residents and staff at skilled nursing centers and long-term care facilities.

The federal plan might include a third allocation at the end of December, then weekly allocations throughout the upcoming new year, LA County health officials said.

When will vaccines be available to the general public?

The pending arrival of vaccines offers some glimmer of hope about an potential end to the pandemic, but officials noted it will be well into next year until vaccines are available to the general public. Initial doses will be limited as manufacturing ramps up.

Where will vaccines be distributed?

Schools, libraries, current testing sites and clinics are all candidates. Ralphs pharmacies and CVS also plan to distribute the vaccine.

How many shots are needed?

All but one vaccine under development require two shots. Pfizer’s second shot is three weeks later, and Moderna’s is four weeks. The doses are administered days apart to achieve the effectiveness in clinical trials. The vaccines work in different ways, but they all assist the immune system in fighting the virus. It usually takes a few weeks after the second dose for a vaccine to provide full protection.

How long will widespread vaccination take?

It will likely take months to immunize everyone who wants to be vaccinated in the United States. The head of President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program has said the U.S. should be able to distribute enough doses to immunize 100 million Americans by the end of February — or nearly a third of the U.S. population. He has said the entire U.S. population — those seeking a vaccine — could be vaccinated by June.

Can I get COVID-19 from the COVID-19 vaccine?

No. A vaccine simply teaches your body’s immune system how to fight the virus that causes COVID-19. Here’s a close look at how the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine works.

How will the vaccine be shipped?

FedEx and UPS officials say their shipping networks are ready, even as they already face a busy holiday season. Vaccines will be loaded and unloaded before other cargo, and flights carrying vaccines will receive priority from the Federal Aviation Administration, the officials said. Vaccine packages will have special labels and devices to monitor location and temperature — a key factor in vaccine shipping and storage. US Marshals will play a role in protecting the vaccine shipments.

What about side effects?

Most people don’t have serious side effects from vaccines. Severe reactions are extremely rare, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. As for Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines only 10% to 15% of volunteers reported side effects that were “significantly noticeable.” Participants told CNBC in September that they experienced high fever, body aches, headaches, exhaustion and other symptoms. While uncomfortable, the participants said they often went away after a day and sooner.

The FDA said there is currently insufficient data to make conclusions about the safety of the vaccine in children under age 16, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems.

If you do experience side effects, report it here.

What about allergic reactions?

Vaccines can sometimes cause allergic reactions, but they’re rare, usually brief and don’t come as a surprise. Here’s an explainer.

Once the vaccine arrives in California, where is it stored?

Proper storage is one of the keys to vaccine distribution. They must be stored at extremely low temperatures. Pfizer’s vaccine requires storage at around minus 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, UCLA and UC San Francisco Medical Center are some of the locations with that capability.

What if I’ve already had COVID-19?

It’s still a good idea to get vaccinated. The FDA said patients may still be at risk of reinfection and could benefit from the vaccine. One problem is that researchers are still trying to determine how long antibody response lasts.

What about children and pregnant women?

You must be 18 to get the coronavirus vaccine. Pfizer began enrolling children between 12 and 17 for trial in the fall. Moderna’s trials for children are just starting.

Pregnant woman have been excluded from large-scale clinical trials. Dr. Christopher Zahn, the vice president of practice activities of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told NBC News that pregnant women should consult their doctors and make a decision based on the available data and their “individual risk factors and the potential benefits.”

Does a vaccine replace masks?

No. What kind of effect the vaccine will have in real-life conditions outside of clinical trials remains to be seen. So, for now, the strategies that have worked to limit the virus’ spread — masks, distancing, hand-washing — still apply.

“It’s only still a piece of the puzzle,” said NBCLA contributor nurse Alice Benjamin.

Can my employer requires me to get vaccinated?

About four in 10 Americans say they would “definitely” or “probably” not get a vaccine, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Some companies may consider compulsory vaccinations, but there are some exceptions under the law. So here’s what to know.

What if the virus mutates?

Not long after China collected samples of the virus and published its genetic code online, allowing researchers to start work on a vaccine, scientists noticed a more contagious strain was spreading in Europe. In a survival-of-the-fittest scenario, the virus was adapting and changing. Here’s how scientists monitor those changes and what it means for vaccines.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The U.S. government, FedEx and the United Parcel Service have begun the enormous logistical undertaking of delivering millions of vaccine doses across the country.

Trucks containing the first packages of the vaccine are leaving Pfizer’s facility in Michigan today with delivery expected on Monday to sites across all 50 states.

CDC Director Robert Redfield has signed off on the vaccine, allowing immunizations to begin Monday.

The shots should go to front-line health-care workers and residents at long-term care facilities first, where the virus has had a devastating toll, according to CDC guidelines.

It’s a race against time to ramp up the vaccine program into a mass inoculation campaign as thousands of people die everyday from Covid-19, with the toll only expected to increase over the holidays.

More than 2,300 deaths were recorded Saturday, following over 3,300 deaths Friday. New infections continue to explode, with more than 219,000 cases reported yesterday.

The following data is from Johns Hopkins University:

• Global cases: More than 71.8 million
• Global deaths: More than 1.6 million
• U.S. cases: More than 16 million
• U.S. deaths: More than 297,000

Here’s what you need to know:

• 189 boxes with vaccines doses leave Michigan Pfizer facility for 50 states
• Another 400 packages ship Monday with delivery expected Tuesday
• HHS says 100 million vaccinations by March
• FDA to publish assessment on Moderna vaccine, approval possible by Friday
• Vaccine czar doesn’t expect supply problems as program ramps
• NIH director pleads with public to trust science and get the shot
• Bill Gates says end in sight for pandemic

Senior U.S. government officials among first to receive coronavirus vaccine

WASHINGTON – The White House said Sunday that senior U.S. government officials will receive the coronavirus vaccine to ensure essential government functionality and security, after reports that Trump administration staffers will be among the first to receive the shots.

“Senior officials across all three branches of government will receive vaccinations pursuant to continuity of government protocols established in executive policy,” National security spokesperson John Ullyot wrote in an emailed statement.

“The American people should have confidence that they are receiving the same safe and effective vaccine as senior officials of the United States government on the advice of public health professionals and national security leadership,” he added.

White House staff members in close quarters with President Donald Trump have been told they are scheduled to receive the vaccine soon, The New York Times reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. The goal is to prevent additional people from falling ill in the West Wing, according to the Times.

Trump will be among the first to receive the vaccine, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The White House has suffered multiple outbreaks of the virus as senior officials, including the president himself, flout CDC health guidelines. Trump contracted the virus and was hospitalized in October for several days. At least 52 people connected to the president have contracted the virus in recent months.

On Sunday, the U.S. government alongside UPS and FedEx embarked on the colossal logistical task of transporting the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine from a Pfizer facility in Michigan to locations across the country.

– Amanda Macias

CDC director signs off on Pfizer vaccine, allowing shots to move forward Monday

CDC Director Robert Redfield has signed off on Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, allowing inoculations to officially move forward for people ages 16 or older.

The decision comes one day after the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an outside group of medical experts that advises the agency, voted 11 to 0 to recommend the vaccine. The FDA approved an emergency use of authorization on Friday.

The U.S. has begun to ship the doses from a Pfizer facility in Michigan to hundreds of distribution centers across the country.

Here is Redfield’s statement:

Last night, I was proud to sign the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendation to use Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in people 16 and older. This official CDC recommendation follows Friday’s FDA decision to authorize the emergency use of Pfizer’s vaccine. As COVID-19 cases continue to surge throughout the U.S., CDC’s recommendation comes at a critical time. Initial COVID-19 vaccination is set to start as early as Monday, and this is the next step in our efforts to protect Americans, reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and help restore some normalcy to our lives and our country.

— Emma Newburger

Sen. Coons says he’s “frustrated and embarrassed” there hasn’t yet been another round of Covid relief

Sen. Chris Coons, D—Del., said Sunday on “Meet the Press” that he was “frustrated and embarrassed” that there hasn’t yet been another round of Covid relief. 

“The fact that nine months later, we don’t have a next round of Covid relief is something I personally am frustrated and embarrassed about,” he said. “Bluntly, I will put a lot of that responsibility at the feet of the leader of the Senate Republican majority, Mitch McConnell, because over and over as negotiations have tried to move forward over the last nine months, he’s had a key redline and sticking point.” 

Sen. Coons said Congress shouldn’t leave for the holidays until the $908 billion framework, which includes $6 billion for vaccine development and distribution and $300 billion for small businesses, has been adopted. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opposes the proposal and has called instead for an agreement that excludes provisions on liability protections for businesses and funding for state and local governments, which have been sources of disagreement between Republicans and Democrats.

Sen. Coons said it’s his impression that Sen. McConnell won’t bring the deal to the floor because it doesn’t have strong majority support among Senate Republicans. 

“But I do want to say there are Republicans working hard on coming together around this bipartisan framework,” he said. 

“We are at the beginning of the end of this pandemic, with nearly 300,000 Americans dead,” he added. “That’s a lot of empty chairs and tables at holiday time. And there’s 16 million Americans infected. 850,000 filed for unemployment this past week, for the first time. We have to address the trust deficit in our country. Trust in science and vaccines. Trust in each other after this election.”

— Megan Graham

U.S. could reach herd immunity by June but enough people must get vaccinated, Slaoui says

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief medical advisor of Operation Warp Speed, said on Sunday that roughly 75-80% of the U.S. population must get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, or the point at which enough people are protected for the virus to be contained.

“We hope to reach that point between the month of May and June. It is, however, critical that most of the American people decide and accept to take the vaccine,” Slaoui said on “Fox News Sunday.”

As states prepare to receive the first rounds of vaccines, only about half of Americans say they want a shot, while a quarter aren’t sure they will get one and an additional quarter say they won’t get one, according to an Associated Press-Norc Poll.

Slaoui said that public doubt over the efficacy or safety of the vaccine is “not anchored in any facts or data” and urged that no corners were cut in the rapid process to get the vaccine approved.

“Unfortunately, there is so much politics around in the context of developing this vaccine that there’s been a confusion between how thorough and scientific and fact checked the work has been done is and the perception that people are thinking that we cut corners or anything like that,” Slaoui said.

“I can guarantee you that no such things have happened,” he added. “We’ve followed the science. It’s actually a remarkable achievement.”

— Emma Newburger

Operation Warp Speed medical advisor doesn’t expect supply issues with vaccine distribution

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, Operation Warp Speed’s chief medical advisor, says he doesn’t believe there will be issues with having enough supply in the spring to continue the vaccine distribution plan. 

He said on “Fox News Sunday” with host Chris Wallace that the plan has been to have a portfolio of vaccines with six different products being developed. He said the hope is to have immunized 100 million people by the first quarter of 2021. 

Those include products from Pfizer; Moderna, which he said is likely to be approved by Friday; Janssen, which he said is in the late stages of its Phase 3 trial and will likely be ready for authorization in late January or early February; and AstraZeneca, which he said could be approvable in late February. Two more vaccine products coming afterward, Slaoui said.

“Pfizer is not the sole supplier, but having said that, we are working with Pfizer to continue helping them and supporting them achieve the objective of providing us with another 100 million doses in the second quarter of 2021,” Slaoui said.

— Megan Graham

HHS chief Azar says 2.9 million doses in first phase, 100 million vaccinations by March

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said that 2.9 million doses of the newly-approved Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech are being distributed in the first round of shipments.

Speaking on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Azar declined to say how soon those vaccines would actually be administered but predicted it would happen “pretty quickly.”

The 2.9 million doses will be distributed to that many individuals, he said, with the second dose of the vaccine being “reserved.” The vaccine is administered in two doses given 21 days apart.

Azar said if a second vaccine candidate, produced by Moderna, is approved that there would be 20 million vaccinations in December, 50 million by the end of January, and 100 million by the end of February.

The Trump administration will turn power over to President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20, but Azar said that he still had confidence in his timeline.

“If they carry forward with the plans that we’ve put in place, 100 million shots in arms by the end of February is very much in scope,” he said.

— Tucker Higgins

New Jersey governor: State will administer first shots on Tuesday to health-care workers

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy spoke about the state’s first vaccine shots being administered this week to health care workers on ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday morning.

Gov. Murphy said the first batch of 76,000 shots would be split up, with the majority going to health-care workers and some going to long-term care residents and staff. The process will begin on Tuesday. 

He said the state is working with the CDC and federal guidance to determine how to prioritize the next population to receive the vaccine. 

Gov. Murphy added that with Moderna’s vacicne up for an emergency use authorization, the state would then have increasing batches from Pfizer and that new vaccine, creating “overlapping waves.” 

— Megan Graham

FDA chief says agency couldn’t have approved Pfizer vaccine any earlier

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said the agency approved Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine as quickly as possible, despite claims by President Donald Trump that the vaccine could have been out a week earlier.

“We have from the beginning said that the only thing that’s going to matter in this is the science and data. And of course we’ve been asked to speed this process as much as possible,” Hahn said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“We do not feel that this could have been out a week earlier. We went through our process,” he said. “We promised the American people that we would do a thorough review of the application and that’s what we did.”

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reportedly told Hahn to submit his resignation if the agency didn’t clear Pfizer’s vaccine for emergency use on Friday. Hahn denied those reports and said the FDA’s decision to approve the vaccine on Friday was guided by science rather than external pressure.

“We were encouraged to move quickly and we were already moving quickly and I feel very confident about the decision we made,” Hahn added.

— Emma Newburger

Bill Gates says next four to six months could be the worst of the pandemic, but ‘we can see that this will end’

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says the end of the pandemic is in sight, but urged people to continue wearing masks and “not mixing” to avoid an additional hundreds of thousands of deaths. 

“The next four to six months really call on us to do our best, because we can see that this will end, and you don’t want somebody you love to be the last to die of coronavirus,” he told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning. 

Gates said by the summer, life should be “way closer to normal than we are now,” but cautioned that the risk of reintroduction could persist through early 2022 unless the U.S. helps other countries get rid of the disease and achieves high vaccination rates in the country. 

He said he foresees big public gatherings still being restricted next summer, but said “we can see now that somewhere between 12 to 18 months, we have a chance, if we manage it well, we’ll get back to normal.” 

Following the likes of Former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, along with President-Elect Joe Biden, Gates said he would take the vaccine publicly. 

“When my turn comes up, I will visibly take the vaccine, because I think that it’s a benefit to all people to not be transmitting,” he said. 

— Megan Graham

FDA will publish assessment on Moderna vaccine this week

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said on Sunday that the FDA will publish their data assessment on Moderna’s vaccine this week and host another public discussion on the company’s request for emergency use authorization.

The FDA authorized Pfizer’s vaccine for emergency use on Friday based on data showing it was 95% effective. States are preparing for the first injections to health-care workers as soon as Monday.

Moderna’s vaccine could be administered as early as Dec. 21 if granted emergency authorization by the FDA. Moderna said it’s on track to produce 20 million doses by the end of the year.

“I’m not going to prejudge that discussion or our assessment of the data,” Hahn said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “My sincere hope is that we move forward and we do so expeditiously.”

— Emma Newburger

NIH director says reluctance to take vaccine source of concern, pleads with people to get inoculated

National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said that surveys showing that many Americans are reluctant to receive a Covid-19 vaccine are a “source of great concern for all of us” and urged the public to get inoculated.

“I would like to plead to people who are listening to this this morning, to really hit the reset button on whatever they think they knew about this vaccine that might cause them to be so skeptical,” Collins told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“The data is out there now. It has been discussed in a public meeting, all the details on the safety and the efficacy for anybody who wants to look,” he added.

Collins said he wanted people to “disregard all those terrible conspiracy theories.”

“People are dying right now, how could you possibly say, ‘Let’s wait and see,’ if that might mean some terrible tragedy is going to befall?” Collins asked. “And especially for health-care providers, please people, when you look back in a year, and you say to yourself, ‘Did I do the right thing?’ I hope you will be able to say, ‘Yes, because I looked at the evidence.'”

— Tucker Higgins

FDA chief hopes first shots administered Monday

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn hopes the first people could receive shots of the vaccine on Monday.

“My hope again is that this happens very expeditiously, hopefully tomorrow,” Hahn said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

An advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the vaccine for people 16 years and older on Saturday, following the FDA’s emergency use authorization Friday.

CDC Director Robert Redfield has to sign off on the advisory panel’s recommendation before the shots can be administered. Hahn said he expects Redfield will make his decision soon.

“He is certainly on top of this and has a lot of confidence in the process particularly with ACIP, I’m sure we will be hearing very soon about this,” Hahn said, referring to the advisory panel.

— Spencer Kimball

‘Good Sunday morning — Here’s a scene we’ve all been waiting for’

189 packages containing vaccine leave Michigan facility

The first shipments in the U.S. of the vaccine are now out for delivery.

Trucks carrying boxes containing vaccine doses left Pfizer’s manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan and are expected to arrive on Monday, according to Pfizer.

189 boxes are shipping to sites across all 50 states and 4 boxes will ship to U.S. territories.

Another 400 boxes will be shipped on Monday with delivery expected Tuesday, Pfizer said.

— Spencer Kimball

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Below are upcoming shipping deadlines from the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx and UPS:

United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service said cards and packages need to be mailed no later than these dates for an expected delivery by Dec. 25:

Dec. 15: USPS Retail Ground Service, Hawaii to mainland Priority Mail and Hawaii to mainland First-Class Mail

Dec. 18: First-Class Mail (including greeting cards), First-Class packages (up to 15.99 ounces) and Alaska to mainland First-Class Mail

Dec. 19: Priority Mail, Alaska to mainland Priority Mail

Dec. 19: Alaska to mainland Priority Mail

Dec. 21: Alaska to mainland Priority Mail Express and Hawaii to mainland Priority Mail Express

Dec. 23: Priority Mail Express

The Postal Service recommends the following mailing and shipping deadlines for expected delivery by Dec. 25 to Air/Army Post Office/Fleet Post Office/Diplomatic Post Office:

Nov. 6: APO/FPO/DPO (all ZIP Codes) USPS Retail Ground service

Dec. 9: APO/FPO/DPO (ZIP Code 093 only) Priority Mail and First-Class Mail

Dec. 11: APO/FPO/DPO (all other ZIP Codes) Priority Mail and First-Class Mail services

Dec. 18: APO/FPO/DPO (except ZIP Code 093) USPS Priority Mail Express service

UPS 

Recommended last days to ship for Dec. 24 deliver. For more information on UPS pricing and international schedules, click here.

Dec. 14: UPS Ground

Dec. 21: UPS 3-Day Select

Dec. 22: UPS 2nd Day Air

Dec. 23: UPS Next Day Air

FedEx 

These services and dates are based on shipping from one U.S. location to another, excluding Puerto Rico. For more information and details on international shipments, click here.

Dec. 9: FedEx SmartPost

Dec. 15: FedEx Home Delivery and FedEx Ground

Dec. 21: FedEx Express Saver

Dec. 22: FedEx Two-Day and FedEx Two-Day A.M. 

Dec 23: FedEx Standard Overnight, FedEx Priority Overnight and FedEx First Overnight and FedEx Extra Hours

Dec. 25: FedEx SameDay, FedEx SameDay City Direct and FedEx SameDay City Priority

For shipping to Puerto Rico

Dec. 22: FedEx International Economy

Dec. 23: FedEx International Priority and FedEx International First

Dec. 24: FedEx International Next Flight

Amazon

Amazon has yet to publish its 2020 Holiday Delivery Calendar, which in years past has noted suggested deadlines for qualifying orders to arrive by Christmas. 

However, Prime Members can take advantage of Amazon’s free one- and two-day shipping in the U.S. and same-day delivery on qualifying orders in some cities. Last year, Amazon designated Dec. 22 as the deadline for free two-day deliver and Dec. 23 for free one-day delivery. The last day for free same-day delivery (in select cities, on qualifying orders over $35) was Dec. 24.

For non-prime members or orders that are not Prime eligible, the safest way to ensure your Amazon gifts arrive on time this year is to make sure the product is marked as “Arrives before Christmas” in the line just above the “Add to Cart” button.

But, with more consumers than ever expected to do their gift buying online this year there could be delays in shipping and shoppers should still get their orders in early or take advantage of some of Amazon’s alternative deliver options that allow customers to retrieve their own packages from brick-and-mortar retail locations and neighborhood “hubs.”

More Holiday 2020 Coverage

coronavirus Nov 26

The Athleisure Market Is Heating Up as Consumers Flock to ‘Comfort in Uncomfortable Times'

coronavirus Nov 25

Shoppers Seek Out Personalized, Thoughtful Holiday Gifts to Feel Connected During Pandemic

That was the advice given to Los Angeles Lakers guard Talen Horton-Tucker ahead of his second preseason game on Sunday night.

In his first preseason game on Friday, Horton-Tucker showed flashes of brilliance. He played so well in that contest that he caught the attention of 2019 NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard, who needed confirmation that the rising star was still just 20 years old.

In his second preseason game on Sunday, Horton-Tucker turned heads again, scoring a team-high 33 points and 10 rebounds in the Lakers 131-106 thrashing of the LA Clippers.

At one point in the game, Horton-Tucker showed off his length and defensive prowess, when he swiped the ball away from Leonard and pushed it on the offensive end on the break. In real time, it was a play reminiscent of Leonard himself, able to snatch the ball out of opponent’s hands with ease.

Horton-Tucker had it all on display on Sunday night, and he had his teammates and coaches raving about him after the game.

“Honestly, I didn’t know a whole lot about him,” admitted new-Laker Marc Gasol, who made his debut in the purple and gold on Sunday. “He’s been awesome to watch, awesome to play with. I like his size. He plays down hill and tries to get into the paint and attack. He’s a good finisher and I love how tenacious he is on defense. He’s a great kid.”

Gasol finished with six points and five assists on Sunday. Montrezl Harrell had 19 points and 11 rebounds against his former team, the second straight double-double against the Clippers.

Kyle Kuzma continued to impress in the preseason with 25 points, six rebounds, and four assists in the victory.

Lou Williams led the Clippers with 12 points and Leonard chipped in 11.

The next question for Horton-Tucker moving forward is just how much playing time he well receive once the regular season starts on Dec. 22.

Naturally, Horton-Tucker received this opportunity to play 41 minutes on Sunday because the Lakers were tremendously shorthanded. LeBron James and Anthony Davis rested for the second consecutive game. Wes Matthews, Alex Caruso, Dennis Schroder, Alfonzo McKinnie, Devontae Cacok, and Kostas Antetokounmpo also did not play for the Lakers.

With just a couple other guards on the active roster on Sunday, Horton-Tucker was given his opportunity to shine. However, that will likely not be the case come the regular season. The biggest hurdle for Horton-Tucker moving forward will be sitting patiently for his opportunity, and trying to find a rhythm quickly once those limited minutes do come.

“It’s going to make my job difficult for sure,” said Lakers’ head coach Frank Vogel when asked how he’s going to find minutes for Horton-Tucker. “We have a very deep team. No minutes are guaranteed.”

Vogel and the Lakers front office will be handed the difficult task of trying to repeat as NBA Champions in 2021, while simultaneously developing young players like Horton-Tucker and Kuzma for the future. Now that the Lakers have seen firsthand what Horton-Tucker is capable of doing on the court given the opportunity, striking a balance between developing chemistry with the starting unit and creating a runway for younger players to take flight will be a chore to say the least. In the meantime, the humble Horton-Tucker is just happy to be out there.

“It’s a blessing,” Horton-Tucker said of the playing time he got on Sunday night. “Tonight was really my second game actually playing and getting minutes. Being able to get that opportunity was really important for me. If I compete on the defensive end, I think it will give me opportunities to get on the court.”

Thankfully for Horton-Tucker, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the new NBA Health and Safety protocols this season, he might get more opportunities for playing time than he otherwise would during a normal season.

Antetokounmpo and Cacok were examples of that on Sunday night. Both players missed the game with excused absences because of the league’s new protocols, as did Clippers point guard Reggie Jackson. With the virus still surging across the country, and the vaccine still not available to the majority of the country, players will most likely have to miss games and quarantine for as little as two weeks if they contract the virus during the season. That means more playing time for others.

Horton-Tucker might not get more than 10 minutes a game once the regular season begins, but with injuries, and health and safety concerns, he certainly will get his opportunities. If Sunday was indicative of what he will do with them once they come, the future looks bright for this sophomore sensation.

The crash took place about 6:40 p.m. at 19965 Temescal Canyon Road, according to the California Highway Patrol. An Internet search of the address indicated the shop was Lalo’s Tires.

Long Beach Dec 14

Long Beach Man Dies in Hospital After Being Shot in Suspected Gang-Related Attack

White House Dec 13

Former Cuomo Staffer Accuses NY Governor of Sexually Harassing Her for Years — He Denies It

The driver was seen running from the scene, the CHP reported. There was no available description of the driver.

There was no word on the age or gender of the victim who apparently died at the scene. The victim’s name will be withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The crash remained under investigation by the CHP.

The shooting happened about 9:30 p.m. Friday in the 900 block of Loma Vista Drive, Long Beach police reported.

coronavirus Dec 14

Los Angeles, San Francisco Counties Break COVID-19 Records

California Dec 13

Who Will Replace Kamala Harris in the Senate? California Governor Weighs a Shortlist of Firsts

Detectives learned that Miguel Reyes of Long Beach and an unidentified woman were getting out of their car when they were confronted by a group of men, at least one of whom opened fire, hitting Reyes but not the woman, LBPD reported.

Officers and paramedics were summoned to the scene, rendered aid and paramedics took Reyes to a local hospital, police said. Reyes died from his injuries Saturday, but police were not informed of the death until Sunday, they said.

The suspects fled the scene on foot after the shooting, according to police.

No suspect information was available.

Anyone with information on this homicide was asked to call LBPD Detectives Michael Hubbard or Ethan Shear at 562-570-7244. Tipsters can also call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.

The blaze, dubbed the “Sanderson Fire,” was reported at around 1 a.m. near the intersection of La Borde Canyon Road and Jack Rabbit Trail, according to the Riverside County Fire Department. The fire exploded in size partly because it was burning in a hard-to- reach spot and the windy conditions in the area, fire officials said.

An evacuation warning was issued for homes north of Gilman Springs Road and south of Timothy Lane, including Jerry Street, McGehee Drive, Alberta Lane, Laurene Lane, Lisa Lane and Kevin Road. 

The warning impacted fewer than a dozen homes, fire officials said. Gilman Springs Road was closed between Alessandro Boulevard and Bridge Street. 

Three water-dropping helicopters and four air tankers were assisting the 130 firefighters battling the blaze on the ground.

Red Flag Warning Dec 6

Red Flag Warning Returns to SoCal, Bringing the Potential For More Power Shutoffs

coronavirus Dec 11

California's Health Order Falling on Many Deaf Ears

USC Student Health and the USC athletic medicine staff will conduct contact tracing. The individual who tested positive was identified prior to contact with anyone expected to participate in Sunday’s game. 

The individual who tested positive has been isolated. The Pac-12 Conference has been alerted.

MLB Dec 14

Report: Cleveland Indians Changing Name After 105 Years

Pac-12 Dec 14

Pac-12 Announces Final Weekend of Games in Football Season

The teams were notified of the postponement in the afternoon before either had arrived at the Galen Center. The postponement was announced about 2 1/2 hours before the game’s scheduled 6:30 p.m. start.

The Pac-12 will work with both programs to attempt to find a mutually agreeable date to reschedule the game.

Additional information on the statuses of USC’s home game against the University of San Francisco Wednesday and at Oregon State next Sunday will be provided later.

Andres Zambrano, believed to be 30 years old, was arrested while eating at a restaurant in Colima, Mexico, Friday by Mexican authorities, returned to California Saturday and turned over to the Los Angeles Police Department, according to the FBI.

FBI agents and LAPD detectives had developed information on Zambrano’s whereabouts and provided it to Mexican authorities in the Colima area, the FBI said.

Zambrano is accused of shooting the mother of his then-2-year-old child in front of her Los Angeles home on March 16, 2017.

Los Angeles Nov 15

Feds Arrest Nine Men on Money Laundering Charges of More Than $30 Million

Mexico Oct 19

Police Seek Help Finding Man Accused of Abducting His 2 Children, Fleeing to Mexico

Based on the investigation by LAPD detectives, Zambrano was charged with murder in Los Angeles and a state warrant was issued for his arrest March 20, 2017, the FBI said. 

Less than two weeks later, he was charged with the federal crime of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and a federal warrant was issued for his arrest.

In 2019, the FBI’s Fugitive Task Force, the LAPD, the sheriff’s department and counterparts in Mexico publicized the cases of a dozen fugitives, including Zambrano, who had allegedly committed crimes in Los Angeles and fled, like many to Mexico.

The FBI offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to his arrest, but it was undisclosed whether someone will qualify for the reward.

Booking information was not immediately available.

The launch was rescheduled for 9:30 a.m. PST Sunday and went off smoothly. According to SpaceX, Friday’s launch was pushed back “to perform additional ground system checkouts.” 

The SXM-7 satellite being deployed in the mission will replace one of SiriusXM’s five satellites already in orbit. Another replacement satellite is scheduled to be launched next month. 

Following the launch, SpaceX landed the first stage of the rocket on a droneship named “Just Read the Instructions” floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

The first stage of the rocket being used in the mission has flown six times previously, making it the company’s second most-veteran flight vehicle. A different booster has already flown seven times, but this mission ties that mark. 

Also being reused on the mission is one-half of the rocket’s “fairing,” or nosecone, that protects the satellite as it’s being propelled into orbit.

The mission marks the first time such a veteran rocket and previously used fairing have been deployed in a fully commercial launch — something experts say is a major expression of the confidence SiriusXM has in SpaceX’s cost-cutting rocket-recovery efforts. 

SpaceX on Wednesday conducted a test launch of a prototype Starship being designed for trips to the Moon, Mars and beyond. 

The ship successfully traveled about eight miles into the air and, during its descent back to Earth, made a successful landing flip maneuver. 

However, the ship exploded on touchdown, with SpaceX founder Elon Musk saying the ship’s velocity was too high on landing. 

Despite the fireball that destroyed the ship, the mission was deemed an overall success thanks to the level of flight information engineers were able to obtain and further advance design work on the craft. After the mission, Musk tweeted, “Mars, here we come!!”

Elon Musk Dec 12

Tesla Tells Employees Model S and X Production Will Shut Down for 18 Days

Elon Musk Dec 9

Elon Musk on the Problem With Corporate America: ‘Too Many MBAs'

SPACEX Dec 11

SpaceX Scrubs SiriusXM Satellite Launch Seconds Before Liftoff

His decision comes with two goals: to prevent potentially spreading the virus to his elderly patients and to communicate to the surrounding rural communities that the vaccine is safe and available.

“We plan to do that on camera in a very public way to help people feel comfortable with the vaccine,” Huth said. “It’s important that as a health care leader in this area, we’re also leading the way on this important initiative.”

Rural communities will see a particular challenge in distributing the vaccine, as officials and health care workers there will have to quickly cobble together communications networks across large areas while also contending with faltering and underfunded public health systems. On top of all that, there exists rampant distrust of medical advice — much of it shared, sown and re-emphasized by President Donald Trump, who has many supporters in rural areas.

Read the full story at NBCNews.com

A new program offered through Claremont Colleges is providing prisoners at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco with access to four-year bachelor degree opportunities, via livestreamed classes that traditional students also attend.

The “Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA” at Pitzer College in Claremont is focused on giving incarcerated individuals the means to acquire liberal arts degrees, and the first eight enrollees from the prison are bound for graduation next year, if they stay the course, according to campus officials.

“Pitzer is demonstrating that there is a sustainable way for colleges and universities to build degree programs in prisons and better serve the needs of their traditional students,” political studies professor Nigel Boyle said. “Widely replicated, this model can have a crucial role in moving the U.S. away from this cycle of mass incarceration.”

personal finance Dec 11

63% of Americans Have Been Living Paycheck to Paycheck Since Covid Hit

coronavirus Dec 11

Pasadena Man Accused of Buying Maserati With COVID Relief Money

coronavirus Dec 11

These Programs Could Help 12 Million Americans Whose Unemployment Benefits Run Out in December

Claremont Colleges, which along with Pitzer includes four other undergraduate colleges and two graduate schools, announced Thursday that the first acceptance letters for the Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA program had been sent.

The program, part of the intercollegiate Justice Education Initiative, is touted as the first of its kind nationwide.

“Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA is at the heart of the college’s educational objectives and core values, particularly social and racial justice, social responsibility and the ethical implications of knowledge and action,” Pitzer President Melvin Oliver said. “Our Claremont students and faculty get the experience of a unique academic environment, and it provides ‘inside’ students a path to a better future.”

The 32-course requirement for an inmate’s graduation is the same for students attending outside the correctional system, according to campus officials. To qualify for admission, inmate students must also have accumulated three years of college credits — two years from community colleges and one from a four-year accredited institution — via distance learning or other means.

The current crop of incarcerated students is working toward baccalaureate degrees concentrated in “organizational studies,” which encompasses elements of psychology, sociology and economics, Oliver said.

All students, whether behind bars or learning from home, can interact via online platforms, he said.

Claremont Colleges published data indicating that education has a direct bearing on recidivism rates. One study showed that 86% of inmates released from prison are likely to perpetrate crimes within three years of parole. However, the odds of recidivism drop 40% when parolees receive some form of education while locked up. It also leads to enhanced employment prospects, according to the research.

Feon Cooper and Kareem Burton, the owners of Black Star Collectibles, say their friendship and now their business partnership is rooted in their long-time love for toys, comics and superheroes, even though as kids they couldn’t identify with any of the characters portrayed in the toys.

“We would go into different stores, and we wouldn’t really see any representation of us, so we wanted to bring a store that would represent us,” said Burton.

“There are a lot of characters that represent us, but the information is not out…you would have to go on a scavenger hunt,” said Cooper.

That’s why despite the anxiety that comes when opening a new business, especially during the pandemic, Cooper and Burton say they are blessed. They finally achieved their childhood dream of opening a business that represents them.

“It’s been truly a blessing for us,” Burton said. 

And their business has been well received by the community.

“I think it’s really inspiring, I think it’s something that people should go for more,” said Maria Hernandez, one of their customers.

The business partners say their shop offers a large variety of products with the Black community in mind, including “comic books, toys, and barbies.”

“[The shop] got all of my favorite things, comic books, basketball and collectibles, I honestly felt like I needed this place,” said Evan Johnson who visited the store attracted by its Black Panther theme.

With their business, Burton and Cooper hope to fulfill their customers’ needs and most importantly, they say, prove that representation matters.

“We want to provide an experience, we want [customers] to come in here with butterflies and leave with a smile,” said Cooper.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Robert Sloan Mateer, 30, is named in a five-count indictment charging him with possession of at least 15 or more unauthorized access devices with intent to defraud, aggravated identity theft, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and being a felon in possession of ammunition, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

If convicted of all charges, Mateer would face between 17 years and life in prison.

California Dec 9

In Freezing Fraudulent EDD Accounts, People Legitimately in Need Can't Get Their Money

California Nov 24

At Least 35,000 Unemployment Claims Filed on Behalf of California Prison Inmates – Including Scott Peterson

According to an affidavit, during a traffic stop on Oct. 1, Pasadena police officers arrested Mateer and found inside his Maserati 17 unemployment benefits debit cards, several other credit and debit cards, $197,711 in cash, more than 85 grams of methamphetamine, and a loaded firearm with no serial number.

Prosecutors allege that evidence gathered during the investigation determined that at least 14 of the 17 debit cards were loaded with at least $133,000 in unemployment insurance benefits, later determined to have been issued under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act passed by Congress in March, and had been issued in the names of third-parties, including identity theft victims.

The California Employment Development Department distributes unemployment insurance benefits under the CARES Act, which expanded unemployment benefits to cover those who were previously ineligible, including business owners, self-employed workers and independent contractors, who were put out of business or significantly reduced their services because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the affidavit, Mateer admitted to obtaining the unemployment benefits debit cards by using “thousands” of identity profiles in his possession, that each debit card was loaded with $14,500, and that he used the fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits to purchase the Maserati.

Mateer also admitted that he withdrew the $197,711 in cash found in his Maserati from ATMs across the Los Angeles area, the affidavit states.

Mateer also allegedly withdrew $13,840 from the EDD debit cards in his possession from Sept. 19 to Sept. 25.

Mateer was taken into federal custody on Oct. 21 and was ordered detained pending trial.

The officers responded at 11 p.m. Friday to reports of street racers at Seventh Street and Western Avenue, according to a statement from the Los Angeles Police Department.

When they arrived, they were surrounded by a number of vehicles and a large group of spectators, police said. Some spectators began smashing the rear side windows and kicking the body of the patrol car and several opened the driver’s door and threw items inside.

Watts Dec 12

Woman Fatally Struck by Several Vehicles, Including Deputy Patrol Vehicle

NATIONAL CITY Dec 12

Teens Plead Not Guilty to Murder Charges in Killing of 17-Year-Old in National City

As the officers broadcast a call for help, one driver attempting to get away intentionally struck the right front of the patrol vehicle, causing damage and prompting a pursuit, police said.

The suspect, later identified as Thomas Myron, 25, hit speeds of more than 120 mph during the chase while driving without headlights on the southbound Golden State (5), southbound San Gabriel River (605), eastbound Century (105) and eastbound Artesia (91) freeways before stopping near the Knott Avenue exit in Buena Park and running into a neighborhood south of the freeway about 11:30 p.m.

Officers converged on a home on Sheridan Way near San Rafael Drive, where Myron was hiding in the backyard before giving himself up to officers at 11:45 p.m.

Earlier in the pursuit, Myron dropped off three passengers on Brookshire Avenue near Imperial Highway in Downey, before continuing eastbound on Imperial Highway.

Myron was booked for suspicion of felony evading and held on $75,000 bail.

The Lakers last played at Staples Center on March 10th, in a 102-104 loss to the Brooklyn Nets. Less than 24 hours later, the NBA was suspended after a player tested positive for COVID-19.

The league resumed play at the end of July inside a “bubble environment” at the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida. Three months later, the Lakers were the last team left standing after defeating the Miami Heat 4-2 to win their 17th NBA title.

Ordinarily, there would be nearly 20,000 fans to greet world champion Lakers and celebrate their first title since 2010. However, in the midst of the pandemic, and with cases surging across the country, especially in Los Angeles County, the Lakers returned home to an empty arena instead.

“It’s different, for sure,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said before the game about the empty arena.

Sophomore guard Talen Horton-Tucker led the Lakers with 19 points, and Kyle Kuzma chipped in 18, as the Lakers cruised past their co-tenants, the Clippers, 87-81. LeBron James and Anthony Davis did not play in the game.

Forward Montrezl Harrell made his Lakers’ debut after playing the last four seasons with the Clippers. Harrell had a double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds against his former team.

Point guard Dennis Schroder, who was acquired by the Lakers in the offseason in a three-team trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Philadelphia 76ers, scored 10 points in his debut.

Fresh off signing a new four-year, $190 million extension with the Clippers, Paul George had 10 points, and running mate Kawhi Leonard scored just three in 14 short minutes.

Both teams struggled offensively, showing noticeable signs of rust while each shooting just 35 percent from the field.

The NBA preseason opened Friday with five games across the country and seven more are scheduled for Saturday. The Lakers-Clippers contest inside Staples Center marked Tyronn Lue’s Clippers’ debut as their new head coach.

Wes Matthews Jr. made his Lakers debut, and Marc Gasol did not play in the contest.

The Lakers will take the court against the Clippers again on Sunday at 5:30 PM PT.

UCLA took a 38-36 lead with 52 seconds remaining on Nicholas Barr-Mira’s 43-yard field goal, but USC (5-0) answered quickly.

Gary Bryant returned the kickoff 63 yards to the Bruins 43, Slovis connected with Tyler Vaughns on a 35-yard reception and St. Brown caught his second TD of the game on the next play.

Slovis completed 30 of 47 passes for 344 yards with two touchdowns each to St. Brown and Drake London. Vaughns caught eight passes for 110 yards and Vavae Malepeai ran for 110 yards in the 90th Crosstown Showdown.

The Trojans clinched the Pac-12 South title earlier in the day when Utah beat Colorado.

The Trojans trailed 28-10 early in the third quarter before scoring touchdowns on five of their seven second-half drives. USC was still down 35-23 at the start of the fourth quarter before Malapei’s 10-yard run, and London scored his second TD on a 9-yard reception. USC went for two after London’s score but couldn’t convert.

USC was able to rally due to UCLA (3-3) mistakes. The Bruins twice turned it over on downs, fumbled on a fake punt and Dorian Thompson-Robinson was picked off.

Thompson-Robinson was 30 of 36 for 364 yards with four touchdowns and two interceptions. Demetric Felton rushed for 90 yards and had two TDs receiving, and Craig Dulcich had eight receptions for 167 yards.

After Brittain Brown’s 15-yard run put the Bruins up by more than two touchdowns, USC scored 13 straight points on Slovis’ TD passes to Vaughns and St. Brown. The Bruins went up 35-23 when Thompson-Robinson connected with Dulcich for a 69-yard score one play after Slovis was intercepted by Stephan Blaylock.

Felton gave the Bruins a 14-0 lead with 8:41 remaining in the first half on a 21-yard reception. After USC scored 10 straight points which included a 65-yard connection from Slovis to London, Felton put UCLA up 21-10 at halftime on a 12-yard grab with 20 seconds remaining in the first half.

STREAKING

Talanoa Hufanga intercepted a pass for the fourth straight game during the fourth quarter, which led to London’s second touchdown.

RARE SCORE

Fernea, a redshirt senior, scored only the second touchdown of his career on a quick screen pass that went for 33 yards.

The Bruins lined up trips left and Fernea got great blocks from Dulcich and Logan Loya to go untouched. It was only his second reception of the season and eighth of his career.

PLAY OF THE GAME

London put the Trojans on the board with one of the best individual effort plays of the season. On second-and-14 from the USC 35, Slovis stepped up in the pocket and found London downfield.

The sophomore caught it at the UCLA 33 and then shed six tackles en route to the end zone, including four attempts at trying to take him down in the final 10 yards.

THE TAKEAWAY

USC: The Trojans had a tough game but should go up a couple spots in the rankings.

UCLA: When the Bruins play clean football, they are usually able to win, but too many mistakes in the second half allowed the Trojans to rally and win for the second straight season.

UP NEXT

USC: Will host Pac-12 championship game on Friday vs. Washington.

UCLA: TBA

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

U.S. Army General Gustave Perna has called today D-Day, a reference to the Allied landing in France during WWII — the beginning of the end in a historic battle against an enemy that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives and threatened basic freedoms.

For UPS, today is the “moment of truth” after months of logistical planning.

The United States’ government, with the help of UPS and FedEx, is now moving rapidly to deliver millions of doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, an accomplishment that President Donald Trump praised as a “medical miracle.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now calling for the invocation of the Defense Production Act to accelerate manufacturing of the vaccine.

It’s now a race against time as thousands of people die every day, alone and separated from their families, from a virus that has devastated communities in every corner of the nation and shaken America’s way of life to its core.

Though help is on the way, the situation is expected to get much worse before it gets better. At least 3,300 deaths from the virus were recorded on Friday and more than 231,000 new cases were reported, stretching the U.S. health-care system to the brink.

With a hard winter ahead, CDC advisors are sounding alarm bells that there’s still not enough federal funding to help local authorities carry out the vaccination campaign. Congress remains at an impasse over a new stimulus package that would include such funding.

The following data was compiled by Johns Hopkins University:

• Global cases: More than 71.2 million
• Global deaths: More than 1.5 million
• U.S. cases: More than 15.8 million
• U.S. deaths: More than 295,000

Here’s what you need to know:

• D-Day: Army general says vaccine beginning of end for virus
• First vaccine shipments arrive Monday at U.S. locations
• For UPS, the “moment of truth”
• FDA chief: Vaccine authorization not due to external pressure
• Patients must receive two shots for full protection: FDA
• Here’s who will get the vaccine first
• Allergies: Injection okay unless you’ve had reaction to a vaccine
• Trump praises vaccine as “medical miracle“
• Pelosi: Time to invoke Defense Production Act

Republicans and Democrats agree on vaccine money, but stimulus deal remains elusive

A bipartisan group in Congress agrees on the need for billions of dollars to support a mass vaccination campaign in the U.S., as CDC advisors warn there’s no where near enough money at the local level for officials to implement such an undertaking.

The most recent proposal from the bipartisan group, a $908 billion stimulus package, includes $6 billion for vaccine development and distribution, as well as $35 billion to support health-care providers. However, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnel opposes that proposal and has called instead for an agreement that excludes provisions on liability protections for businesses and funding for state and local governments.

As Congress struggles to reach a deal, the first vaccines are expected to begin arriving at sites across the nation on Monday. State and local health departments as well as health-care providers will need much more money to administer vaccines as the programs ramps up, members of a CDC advisory panel warned on Saturday.

— Spencer Kimball

People should still wear masks and social distance after vaccination, CDC says

People who are vaccinated against Covid-19 will still need to practice current recommended public health guidance to prevent the virus’ spread, like wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding crowds, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officer said.

That’s because there’s limited information on how well the vaccine will work once in the general population; how much it may reduce disease, severity or transmission; and how long protection lasts, Dr. Sarah Mbaeyi, a CDC medical officer, told the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Protection from the vaccine won’t be immediate, Mbaeyi added, saying “it will take one to two weeks following the second dose before a person is considered fully vaccinated.”

“Additionally, as no vaccine is 100% effective, some vaccinated people may still get Covid-19 disease,” Mbaeyi said.

— Noah Higgins-Dunn

States will need more funding for their vaccine plans, CDC advisors says

State and local health departments, as well as health systems and providers, will need more government funding to carry out coronavirus vaccinations, members of a key group of advisors to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The comments came after the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to recommend Pfizer–BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for people 16 years and older. Dr. Peter Szilagyi, an ACIP member and a pediatrician at the University of California Los Angeles, said that he wanted to reemphasize the “need for substantially increased government funding to actually implement the recommendation.”

“I know we’re going to have very tough and sad times ahead because of the surge and a limited vaccine supply, but I am really hopeful that this is the beginning of the end of the coronavirus pandemic,” Szilagyi said.

Dr. Beth Bell, an ACIP member and a clinical professor of global health at the University of Washington, echoed Szilagyi’s remarks, saying it’s not unfair to compare the amount of funding the federal government provided for the vaccine’s development compared to the little funding dolled out for administering the shots.

“I think that the imbalance between that kind of money and the funding that has been provided for the vaccination programs and for implementation is really shocking and needs to be corrected because we are not going to be able to protect the American public if we don’t have a way to deliver the vaccines to them,” Bell said.

— Noah Higgins-Dunn

CDC panel recommends Pfizer vaccine, clearing another major hurdle

A key panel at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has backed Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for people 16 years and older, less than a day after the Food and Drug Administration issued its emergency use authorization for the vaccine.

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of medical experts that advises the agency, recommended the Pfizer vaccine in an 11-0 vote. Earlier this month, the panel voted 13-1 to give health-care workers and residents at long-term care facilities the vaccine first once cleared for public use.

—Spencer Kimball

People who contracted Covid should still get vaccinated, CDC says

Clinical data from Pfizer–BioNTech‘s coronavirus vaccine trials shows that it’s safe and likely efficacious for people who were once infected with the virus to get vaccinated against the disease, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officer said.

Dr. Sarah Mbaeyi, a CDC medical officer, told the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that vaccines should be offered to people “regardless of history of prior symptomatic or asymptomatic” coronavirus infection.

Mbaeyi told the panel, however, that a diagnostic or antibody test isn’t recommended to decide whether someone should get the vaccine. Someone who’s infected with Covid-19 and has symptoms should wait to get vaccinated until they’ve recovered and finished isolation, according to a presentation at the meeting.

Since current evidence suggests that Covid-19 reinfection is uncommon 90 days after someone is infected, someone “may delay vaccination until near the end of this period if desired,” Mbaeyi said.

— Noah Higgins-Dunn

U.S. to maintain reserve of Covid vaccine doses as safeguard against distribution problems

The U.S. will for now maintain a reserve of more than 50% of coronavirus vaccine doses manufactured in the event there is spoilage as Pfizer’s vaccine begins being distributed nationwide this weekend, Army Gen. Gustave Perna said at a press conference.

The reserve includes the second doses to be given individuals, who need two shots for the vaccine to work as designed, as well as additional doses.

“Do I think something is going to occur? I do,” said Perna, who oversees logistics for the government’s vaccine effort Operation Warp Speed. “Hence the reason why I maintain some reserve stocks so I could adjust and adapt and make sure that the American people have access to the vaccine and immediately — or as soon as I can.”

Perna said that currently officials “don’t have an absolute confidence in the cadence” of distributing vaccines without spoilage, not because [vaccine makers] Pfizer … or Moderna are not diligent in their process, but it is such a delicate process.”

“We want to ensure perfection in the vaccine because we do not want anything going into an arm that would be a problem,” he said.

But Perna said, “I see reserve dwindling every day as we move forward” and gain confidence in the distribution of the vaccine.

“My goal is to drive that down because we want no vaccines on the shelf,” he said.

— Dan Mangan

Covid-19 vaccines could be delivered to all U.S. providers within three weeks, Gen. Perna says

Operation Warp Speed Chief Operation Officer Gen. Gustave Perna said that the Covid-19 vaccine could be delivered to all U.S. providers within three weeks and about 40 million doses could made available for distribution by the end of the year.

About 3 million shots are set to ship across the country this week in the initial rollout. Locations to receive shipments include hospitals and local pharmacies that meet ultra-cold storage standards for the vaccine.

“I feel confident that as we do the initial shipments this week and then hopefully following with the Moderna vaccine, we will begin to blossom expansion of delivery throughout the states to ensure greater access to the vaccine availability for everybody,” Perna said during a Saturday press briefing.

Nearly 100,000 Americans already participated in clinical trials across the country to receive the vaccine.

“We are not done until every American has access to the vaccine, until every American that wants it, receives it,” Perna said. “This is our goal, we work every day to achieve it.”

— Emma Newburger

FAA says pilots can take Pfizer’s vaccine

The Federal Aviation Administration has cleared pilots and air traffic controllers to take Pfizer‘s coronavirus vaccine. They needed the FAA’s approval before taking the vaccine or risk losing their medical certificates that are required to fly.

The FAA said it will require an observation period of 48 hours after each of the two doses before pilots and air traffic controllers can perform their duties.

“The FAA anticipates taking no additional measures to ensure safety after the initial window for side effects closes,” the agency said Saturday. “However, the agency’s medical professionals will continuously monitor the initial distribution of the novel vaccine and documented clinical results and will adjust these recommendations as needed.”

Pilot and other aviation-industry unions are urging officials to provide priority access to the vaccine for their members.

The FAA said it will evaluate vaccines from other manufacturers as they’re cleared by the Food and Drug Administration.

—Leslie Josephs

First vaccine shipments will arrive in U.S. on Monday, Gen. Perna says

The first vaccine shipments will arrive to U.S. providers on Monday morning, General Gustave Perna, chief operating officer for the Defense Department’s Project Warp Speed, announced on Saturday.

“Make no mistake, distribution has begun,” Perna said during a press briefing. “Right now boxes are being packed and loaded with vaccine with emphasis on quality control.”

Within the next 24 hours, vaccine shipments will move from Pfizer manufacturing facilities to the UPS and Fed Ex hubs.

The vaccine will arrive to 636 locations nationwide this week, with 145 sites receiving shipments on Monday, another 425 sites on Tuesday and the final 66 sites on Wednesday, Perna said.

Kits that include needles, syringes, diluent and other supplies to administer the shots have already been delivered to the first sites, according to Perna.

— Emma Newburger

D-Day for coronavirus vaccine: Army general says distribution is beginning of end for Covid

The Army general in charge of logistics for Operation Warp Speed called Saturday “D-Day,” or “the beginning of the end” of the coronavirus epidemic as authorities began packaging newly approved vaccines to begin being shipped around the country.

“Today is truly a historic day,” said Gen. Gustave Perna at a briefing by the Health and Human Services Department, which was held the morning after the Food and Drug Administration issued emergency use authorization approval to the Covid vaccine for Pfizer and BioNTech.

“As I speak today right now, vaccines are being packaged with a lot of emphasis on the quality assurance to that end, tomorrow morning vaccines will start rolling from manufacturing to distribution hubs,” Perna said. “And then Monday, vaccines will be received.”

Perna noted that he has repeatedly used the term D-Day — the name for the day that Allied forces invaded Normandy Beach in France during World War II — to talk about the day vaccines would start being shipped.

But the “D” does not stand for “distribution,” as many had assumed, Perna said.

Instead, D-Day in the military designates the day “the mission begins.”

“D-Day was the beginning of the end, and that is where we are today,” Perna told reporters.

“We have a lot of work to do. We are not taking a victory lap.”

— Dan Mangan

Providers will need to council pregnant women on whether they should get vaccine, FDA says

Medical providers will have to council pregnant women on whether it’s beneficial for them to receive Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said during a press briefing.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said that there were not enough pregnant women or women who became pregnant during the vaccine’s clinical trials to determine whether they should be vaccinated. He added that pregnant women should discuss with their medical providers the “potential benefits and the potential risks” of being inoculated with the drug.

“I think then if that conversation happens, I think the provider and that individual can make a decision about whether the benefits outweigh the risks because certainly Covid-19 in a pregnant woman is not a good thing,” Marks said.

“So someone might decide that they would like to be vaccinated, but that’s not… something that we’re recommending at this time, that’s something we’re leaving up to the individual,” Marks said.

— Noah Higgins-Dunn

UPS says now is ‘moment of truth’ as it prepares to deliver Pfizer vaccine doses

UPS will begin shipping doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine in the coming days, saying now is “the moment of truth” following months of logistical planning.

The company said in a statement that the vaccine doses will start at storage sites in Michigan and Wisconsin. From there, they will be to moved to UPS facilities in Louisville where doses can be expedited by air “to select destinations, including hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities, to inoculate healthcare workers.”

UPS has already distributed vaccine administration kits with supplies such as syringes, masks, sanitizer and a diluting agent required to administer the doses, spokesman Jim Mayer told CNBC on Thursday. The company will also provide vaccination sites that don’t have the necessary freezers to store the vaccine at ultra-cold temperatures with dry ice, Mayer said.

“This is the moment of truth we’ve been waiting for at UPS,” Wes Wheeler, president of UPS Healthcare, said in a statement. “We have spent months strategizing with Operation Warp Speed officials and our healthcare customers on efficient vaccine logistics, and the time has arrived to put the plan into action.”

— Noah Higgins-Dunn

FDA chief urges people ‘to remain vigilant’ despite vaccine authorization

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn urged people to “remain vigilant” against Covid-19 and to continue following recommended public health guidance even as the U.S. prepares to distribute Pfizer’s vaccine.

“While our federal partners are already taking steps to distribute this vaccine, we remind the public to remain vigilant as inoculation will take time,” Hahn said during a press briefing. “Wear a mask, wash your hands and remain socially distant when possible; protect yourself, the vulnerable and others.”

There should be enough doses for most Americans who want to be vaccinated by late March or early April next year, experts like White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci have said. Earlier this week, Fauci said that the U.S. could get the pandemic under control by the “back half of 2021” if enough people are vaccinated in the spring.

— Noah Higgins-Dunn

FDA confident in maintaining cold-chain requirements for vaccine

The FDA is confident that it will meet cold-chain requirements for the Covid-19 vaccine as it prepares nationwide distribution, according to Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA.

The Pfizer vaccine must be stored at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit and can be kept in a regular refrigerator for a number of days once it thaws.

“We’ve seen cold-chains maintained in locations that are pretty rural or pretty rough, for instance with vaccine campaigns in Africa,” Marks said during a press briefing on Saturday. “We’re hopeful that this is going to work out.”

Vaccines will originate from Pfizer storage sites in Michigan and Wisconsin and will travel by air and truck to hospitals and other medical facilities to inoculate health-care workers across the country.

— Emma Newburger

People with allergies can receive injection unless they’ve had severe reaction to a vaccine: FDA

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA, said that people can receive the Covid-19 vaccine unless they’ve had severe allergic reactions to a vaccine or one of its components.

Marks said that people with a history of allergic reactions should consult their doctor to determine if they should receive a vaccine. About 1.6% of the U.S. population has had some sort of severe allergic reaction to food or an environmental factor, he said, and the FDA doesn’t want to exclude those people from getting vaccinated.

“We feel comfortable telling people they can receive the vaccine unless they’ve had severe reactions to a vaccine or one of the components in it,” Marks said.

The FDA will ensure that sites administering the Covid-19 vaccine will be equipped to treat allergic reactions if they happen, Marks said. He also noted that though there were a few reactions to the vaccine in Britain, such reactions were not seen in larger clinical trial data sets.

— Emma Newburger

Trump calls Pfizer vaccine a medical miracle, says it will end Covid in America

President Donald Trump called Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine “a medical miracle” that “will save millions of lives and soon end the pandemic once and for all.”

“We have delivered a safe and effective vaccine in just nine months. This is one of the greatest scientific accomplishments in history,” Trump said in a video statement from the White House after the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to the Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech.

Trump said that the vaccine, which was set to begin being administered 24 hours after the FDA approval on Friday, should go first to  “our senior citizens, health-care workers and first responders to be first in line.”

“This will quickly and dramatically reduce deaths and hospitalizations,” he said.

Using a term for the coronavirus that many consider racist, Trump said, “When the China virus invaded our shores, I promised that we would produce a vaccine in record time, before the end of the year.”

“They said it couldn’t be done. But, with [this] announcement, we have now achieved that goal,” Trump said.

“As I’ve said from the beginning, a vaccine will vanquish the virus and return life back to normal.  The pandemic may have begun in China, but we are ending it right here in America,” he said.

— Dan Mangan

‘Foolhardy’ to assume one dose might be sufficient, FDA official says

The FDA has reiterated its recommendation that patients receive two doses of the vaccine, warning against speculation that a single dose might provide sufficient protection.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA, told reporters that those who participated in clinical trials received two doses, and the FDA’s recommendations are based on the scientific data from studying the two-dose regimen.

“We spent so much time carefully reviewing the data and basing decisions on science that it seems pretty foolhardy to conjecture that one dose might be okay without knowing,” Marks said.

“At least from an FDA perspective, we would be recommending that people complete the two-dose series so that we actually know they are truly protected at the rate of approximately 95% efficacy that was reported,” Marks said.

— Spencer Kimball

Pelosi calls for quick, fair and free distribution of Covid vaccine to as many Americans as possible

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the coronavirus vaccine that has been granted emergency use approval by the Food and Drug Administration to be distributed quickly, freely and fairly to “as many Americans as possible.”

Pelosi, D-Calif., also said the Defense Production Act should be invoked to accelerate the manufacturing of the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech. The act authorizes the president of the United States to require companies to accept contracts to produce materials.

“Americans should have full confidence in this vaccine knowing that it has been reviewed and recommended by the independent experts of the FDA’s advisory panel,” Pelosi said in a statement.

“We must ensure that the vaccine will be free and distributed in a fair and equitable manner to as many Americans as possible as soon as possible,” she said. “With vaccine distribution being administered by the states, state and local funding is also central to our efforts to crush the coronavirus.” 

Pelosi also said that that until the vaccine is widely available, Americans should continue embracing “the testing, tracing, treatment, mask wearing and social distancing that are essential to preventing thousands of Americans from dying every day from the pandemic.”

— Dan Mangan

FDA chief says Pfizer vaccine authorization not due to ‘external pressure’

Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, emphasized during a press briefing that “science and data guided the FDA’s decision” to grant Pfizer’s vaccine emergency authorization and called reports that he would be fired if the drug wasn’t immediately authorized “inaccurate.”

“Science and data guided the FDA’s decision. We worked quickly based on the urgency of this pandemic, not because of any other external pressure,” Hahn said during a press briefing. “This decision was based on the strongest scientific integrity, and I’m so proud of the work that our career scientists have done.”

On Friday, The Washington Post first reported that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told Hahn to submit his resignation if the agency didn’t clear the vaccine for emergency use by the end of the day. In a statement following the report, Hahn called the report “an untrue representation” of his conversation with Meadows.

“The representations in the press that I was threatened to be fired if we didn’t get it done by a certain date is inaccurate,” Hahn said at the briefing on Saturday.

— Noah Higgins-Dunn

Covid-19 deaths could nearly double by April despite vaccines

Health researchers warn that the country’s Covid-19 death toll could nearly double in upcoming months, even with a vaccine set to roll out.

The U.S. will likely see a cumulative 539,000 deaths by April 1, according to a recent report published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine. 

The anticipated vaccine would reduce the number of deaths by 9,000 before April 1, but a rapid vaccine rollout targeting high-risk individuals could save 14,000 more lives, the report said.

— Emma Newburger

Who will get the first doses of vaccine?

The first group of Americans outside of clinical trials could be inoculated against Covid-19 in the coming days.

In early December, a key Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, voted 13-1 to give health-care workers and long-term care facility residents the first vaccine doses once cleared for public use.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said most states and local jurisdictions expect it to take three weeks to vaccinate all of their health-care workers. 

— Noah Higgins-Dunn

U.S. government plans to distribute 2.9 million vaccine doses in 24 hours

The federal government’s vaccine distribution plan will kick into gear now that the Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s vaccine.

The government plans to distribute 2.9 million doses of the vaccine within 24 hours. Another 2.9 million doses will come 21 days later for patients to get their second shot, according to Gen. Gustave Perna, who is overseeing the logistics for Operation Warp Speed.

Pfizer plans to ship 50 million doses of the vaccine this year, which is enough to immunize 25 million people due to the two-dose protocol.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said the U.S. could have enough vaccine doses for every American by April.

— Spencer Kimball

Correction: The U.S. government will begin distributing vaccines doses in the next 24 hours. A previous version of this post used incorrect terminology.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Derrick Etienne Jr. also scored in the first 45 minutes for Columbus. The Crew withstood Seattle’s second-half pressure and finally celebrated after Zelarayán’s goal.

Zelarayán, the MLS newcomer of the year and largest signing in franchise history, was the best player on the field on a night the Crew were playing short-handed. Columbus was without midfielders Darlington Nagbe and Pedro Santos after both tested positive for COVID-19 this week.

Despite the absences, the Crew were the decidedly better side and Zelarayán was the instigator. Columbus claimed its first title since 2008 and denied Seattle a chance at being just the fourth back-to-back champions in league history. The Sounders, playing in their fourth final in five years, were trying to be the first repeat champions since the LA Galaxy in 2011-12.

It was the first appearance in the final for Columbus since 2015 when the Crew were denied a title by the Portland Timbers and current Columbus coach Caleb Porter. The franchise was nearly relocated just a few years ago, but efforts to keep the team in Columbus proved successful and now there is a championship to celebrate.

The loss of Nagbe and Santos seemed to be the biggest story entering the final. It was the first time this season Columbus played without either player in its lineup.

But their teammates — namely Zelarayán — made their absences moot.

Zelarayán scored in the 25th minute off a perfect feed from Harrison Afful, getting behind Seattle fullback Alex Roldan and snaking his left-footed volley past goalkeeper Stefan Frei. Six minutes later, Zelarayán made the smart play finding Etienne and his curling shot gave Columbus a 2-0 lead. Etienne started in place of Santos.

And Zelarayán showed patience before rocketing a left-footed shot past Frei for the final goal. Zelarayán was the third player in an MLS Cup final with two goals and the first since Alecko Eskandarian in 2004.

Seattle needed a frantic comeback in the final 15 minutes of its Western Conference final against Minnesota United just to reach MLS Cup. Down 2-0 to Minnesota, the Sounders scored three times, including Gustav Svensson’s winner in stoppage time off a corner kick.

The deficit was the same for most of the second half against Columbus, but the magic of Seattle’s comeback just five days earlier was absent. The Sounders had numerous chances in the second half, but attempts failed to find the net. Nicolas Lodeiro’s shot through traffic in the 71st minute trickled wide. Three minutes later, Svensson’s header off a corner kick failed to find the target.

Jordan Morris had the final good look for Seattle in the 80th minute, but his header was saved by Eloy Room.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

This year’s presidential race provides the latest motivation for change to supporters of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. While Democrat Joe Biden scored a decisive win over President Donald Trump in both the popular vote and Electoral College, the race came down to narrow margins in a handful of swing states.

If the results had turned out differently in some of those states, Trump could have lost the popular vote for the second election in a row but gained the presidency because of the Electoral College system.

“It’s an old, ugly mess that frankly should have been obviated some time ago,” said Virginia House of Delegates member Mark Levine, a Democrat who introduced a bill that would have Virginia sign on to the National Popular Vote movement. It would compel member states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote.

Levine’s measure passed the Virginia House earlier this year. Passage by the Senate would bring the movement 13 electoral votes closer to its goal.

So far, 15 states and the District of Columbia have signed on.

For presidential candidates, 270 represents the number of Electoral College votes needed to secure a win. The move toward a national popular vote also is aiming for that magic number. It already has secured 196 and aims to gain more next year. Advocates hope, perhaps unrealistically, that it will be in place by the next presidential election in 2024.

Under the current system, each state’s electoral votes go to the candidate who won the popular vote in that state, with the runner-up getting nothing. Nebraska and Maine are the only exceptions.

National Popular Vote, the group pushing the compact, is focusing in 2021 on Virginia and eight other states: Arizona, Arkansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina and Oklahoma. The initiative has made progress in those states by passing at least one legislative chamber, but didn’t clear the finish line, spokesman Patrick Rosenstiel said.

They have a combined total of 88 electoral votes, enough to surpass 270.

“We’ll focus on any states that offer a credible chance of enactment between now and the 2024 presidential election,” Rosenstiel said.

Success in those states is far from assured. In the modern era, the Electoral College has benefited Republican candidates — George W. Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016 won the presidency after losing the popular vote. Of the states targeted next year, Republicans will control both houses of the legislature in Arizona, Arkansas, Michigan, North Carolina and Oklahoma, and one chamber in Minnesota.

Yet even in Nevada, where Democrats control the Legislature and governor’s office, the issue is a hard sell.

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak last year vetoed a measure supported by Democratic lawmakers that would have committed Nevada to the compact.

The Democratic governor said the compact “could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests.”

Nevada has been a battleground state for several presidential election cycles, including this year. That brought campaign stops by Trump and Biden, attention they might not have lavished on Nevada’s 3 million residents if the current system had not existed.

Under the Electoral College, each state’s number of electoral votes equals the size of its congressional delegation. Wyoming, America’s least populous state, has two senators and one representative, so it gets three. California, the most populous state, has 55.

To win the White House, a presidential candidate must collect at least half the total 538 electoral votes plus one – or 270. This system has delivered a split presidential verdict five times, with a candidate winning the presidency despite losing the popular vote.

The U.S. is the only modern democracy with such a system, according to the Pew Research Center. Most others elect their leader by national popular vote or the parliamentary system in which the winning party chooses the head of government.

Opponents say the U.S. system violates the one person-one vote principle, encourages candidates to ignore states that are either firmly Democratic or Republican, and gives disproportionate power to voters in just a few states.

But Electoral College supporters say it adheres to federalism by preserving the role of states in presidential elections.

If the movement to change the system reaches the 270 threshold, those supporters might sue on constitutional grounds. The Constitution says Congress must consent to interstate compacts. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that some compacts don’t require congressional consent.

“We believe Supreme Court precedents indicate that this additional step is not needed,” National Popular Vote Chairman John Koza said in an interview. “Nonetheless, National Popular Vote is working to obtain support for the compact in Congress.”

After Bush and Trump won the White House despite losing the popular vote, the push to change the system has become more partisan.

“That’s why states that have Democratic majorities are more interested than states with Republican majorities,” said Wendy Underhill, director of elections and redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The 15 state legislatures that have passed a national popular vote bill since 2007 are all controlled by Democrats: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

The District of Columbia council, controlled by Democrats, also approved it, contributing three electoral votes from the nation’s capital.

Over a decade ago, when President Barack Obama, a Democrat, was in office, it was at times a reverse partisan issue, Koza said.

A national popular vote measure, for example, passed the Republican-controlled New York Senate back then, but didn’t get through the Democrat-controlled Assembly.

“This is an issue that people have a very short-term partisan way of looking at, and the Democrats felt that they had a lock on the White House,” Koza said.

Legislatures in the Midwest and South have shied away from joining the compact. South Dakota’s Legislature even passed a resolution this year condemning it.

“The current Electoral College system creates a needed balance between rural and urban interests and ensures that the winning candidate has support from multiple regions of the country,” the resolution says.

State Rep. Tina Mulally, who introduced the resolution, said in an email that the Electoral College boosts the political influence of smaller states like South Dakota and protects the minority population.

A national popular vote, she said, would be “like two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner.”

___

Follow Andrew Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky

The patient arrived at the Westwood hospital on Nov. 14 wearing a long-sleeve denim button-up shirt, gray denim pants, a black belt, light gray socks, dark gray Adidas tennis shoes and a royal blue baseball hat that said “Los Angeles & LA,” according to David Sampson, UCLA Health’s director, media relations.

He is described as Latino, 5 feet, 5 inches tall, 165 pounds, with a tan complexion, brown eyes, black hair in a buzzed-cut, three gold front teeth, a black goatee with light hair and a freckle on his left cheek, officials said.

Andres Guardado Dec 12

Two Deputies Involved In Andres Guardado's Death Suspended For Unrelated Reasons

coronavirus Dec 12

FDA Approves Pfizer's Covid Vaccine for Emergency Use as U.S. Reaches Pivotal Moment in the Pandemic

The hospital could not release further information about the man or his condition due to patient privacy laws, Sampson said.

“In my 15 years at UCLA Health, this is only the third time we have needed to ask for community support in finding the loved ones of a patient in an effort to determine their identity,” said UCLA Health care coordination systems director Mary Noli Pilkington.

The hospital circulated a photo of the patient and urged anyone with information about him to contact Marcy Gitlin, UCLA care coordination/clinical social work, at 310-267-9753.

A key U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel voted unanimously to recommend Pfizer–BioNTech‘s Covid-19 vaccine for people 16 years and older on Saturday, clearing another pivotal hurdle for the drug before vaccinations begin in the coming days.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an outside group of medical experts that advises the agency, voted 11 to 0 recommend the vaccine for use in people 16 and older under the Food and Drug Administrations emergency authorization. Three members recused themselves due to conflicts.

The recommendation will now be sent to CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, who will need to sign off before vaccinations can begin. A CDC spokesperson was not immediately available for comment regarding when Redfield would sign off on the recommendation.

“This Covid-19 vaccine offers us hope,” said Veronica McNally, an ACIP member and assistant dean for experiential education at Michigan State University College of Law. “It’s important to remember that while this vaccine has been developed at an incredible pace and involves new technology, it’s gone through all the appropriate regulatory channels and the approval processes have been transparent.”

Dr. Beth Bell, an ACIP member and a clinical professor of global health at the University of Washington, said that she recognizes people’s concern about this vaccine and new vaccines in general, but added that she “certainly” will take this vaccine when it’s her turn.

“I do believe that the process that we have used here in the ACIP to reach this decision is transparent, is science based, keeps equity in mind and is, for this moment, the absolute best that we can do,” Bell said.

Dr. Peter Szilagyi, a member of the committee and a pediatrician at the University of California Los Angeles, added that he wanted to emphasize the need “for substantially increased government funding to actually implement the recommendation” following the vote. Several trade groups that represent state health agencies have placed the price tag for the vaccine distribution plans at more than $8 billion.

“I know we’re going to have very tough and sad times ahead because of the surge and a limited vaccine supply, but I am really hopeful that this is the beginning of the end of the coronavirus pandemic,” Szilagyi said.

The vote marked the end of an hours-long meeting where ACIP members heard presentations from officers at the CDC regarding clinical considerations for people who are vaccinated under the emergency authorization. The ACIP’s emergency meeting, which was pushed from Sunday to Saturday, followed the FDA’s decision to issue Pfizer’s vaccine an emergency use authorization Friday evening.

Dr. Sarah Mbaeyi, a CDC medical officer, told the agency during a presentation that vaccines should be offered to people “regardless of history of prior symptomatic or asymptomatic” coronavirus infection. Mbaeyi told the panel, however, that a diagnostic or antibody test isn’t recommended to decide whether someone should get the vaccine.

Further studies regarding the safety of the vaccine in pregnant women are still ongoing, Mbaeyi said. However, if a pregnant woman is part of a group prioritized for the vaccine, Mbaeyi said they could choose to be vaccinated following an informed decision with a health-care provider.

Members of the public were also invited to share comments and concerns about the vaccine and its distribution. Claire Hannan, the executive director of Association of Immunization Managers, told the committee that there needs to be more defined guidance regarding who’s considered an essential worker since states across the U.S. differ on their definitions.

On Dec. 1, the group voted 13-1 to give health-care workers and long-term care facility residents the first vaccine doses once cleared for public use.

“Guidance on subsequent priority groups is needed immediately,” Hannan said. “Jurisdictions are working now to plan for vaccine allocation coming in the next month. They need to work closely with providers and communicate clearly with consumers about what to expect.”

Following the meeting, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a tweet that a panel arranged by a coalition of west coast states to independently review the safety and efficacy data from Covid-19 vaccines will examine Pfizer’s data on Saturday following the ACIP recommendation. Newsom said the state expects vaccine “distribution as early as tomorrow.”

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.