Trump tours Paradise area, calls wildfire a ‘really bad one’
PARADISE, Calif. — From the ashes of a mobile home and RV park, President Donald Trump said Saturday he came to the heart of California’s killer wildfire to fully grasp the scale of the desolation wrought on the landscape.
“We’re going to have to work quickly. … Hopefully this is going to be the last of these because this was a really, really bad one,” said the president, standing amid the crumpled foundations of homes and twisted steel of melted cars.
“I think everybody’s seen the light and I don’t think we’ll have this again to this extent,” Trump said in Paradise, the town largely destroyed by a wildfire ignited Nov. 8 that he called “this monster.”
With that bold and perhaps unlikely prediction, Trump pledged that improved forest management practices will diminish future risks. The declaration evoked his initial tweeted reaction to the fire, the worst in the state’s history, in which he seemed to blame local officials and threatened to take away federal funding.
When asked if seeing the historic devastation, which stretched for miles and left neighborhoods destroyed and fields scorched, altered his opinion on climate change, Trump answered, “No.”
1 dead, scores injured in fuel tax protests around France
PARIS — One protester was killed and 227 other people were injured — eight seriously — at roadblocks set up around villages, towns and cities across France on Saturday as citizens angry with rising fuel taxes rose up in a grassroots movement, posing a new challenge to beleaguered President Emmanuel Macron.
Police officers lobbed tear gas canisters at demonstrators on the famed Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris as groups of “yellow jackets,” as the protesters called themselves, tried to make their way to the presidential Elysee Palace. Later, hundreds of protesters entered the bottom of the street dotted with luxury shops where the palace is located — and where Macron lives — before being pushed back by security forces with shields.
In a similar scenario, police cleared out the huge traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe, paralyzed for hours by protesters.
French Interior Ministry officials counted nearly 283,000 protesters, mostly peaceful, throughout the day at more than 2,000 sites, some setting bonfires or flying balloons.
However, some demonstrations turned violent. In Troyes, southeast of Paris, about 100 people invaded the prefecture, the local representation of the state, damaging the inside, Interior Ministry officials said. In Quimper, in Brittany, security forces used water cannon to disperse hostile protesters.
Utah mayor killed in Afghanistan had ‘loved Afghan people’
OGDEN, Utah — A Utah mayor killed while serving in the National Guard in Afghanistan had “loved the Afghan people” and was a man of conviction, confidence and compassion, family and military leaders said at a public funeral Saturday.
Brent Taylor, 39, was a deeply patriotic man who was committed to training commandos as part of an effort to build the capacity of the Afghan national army, Utah Army National Guard Maj. Gen. Jefferson Burton said at the service inside an events center in the northern Utah city of Ogden.
Taylor was killed Nov. 3 in an attack by one of the Afghan commandos he was training, military officials said.
“He was completely committed to going and doing this job,” Burton said. “He truly loved the Afghan people and wanted to help them so they could build capacity in themselves and as a nation to be able to stand on their own.”
Taylor’s casket was draped in an American flag and sat in front of a stage where his father, a local leader with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, led the services.
From wire sources
As Florida recount wraps up, Democrat Gillum concedes
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Democrat Andrew Gillum ended his hard-fought campaign for Florida governor on Saturday, just hours before counties must turn in their official results following days of recounting ballots.
Gillum, in a video that he posted on Facebook, congratulated Republican Ron DeSantis but vowed to remain politically active although he gave no clues as his future plans. His term as Tallahassee mayor ends next week.
“This has been the journey of our lives,” said Gillum, who appeared in the video with his wife, R. Jai Gillum. “Although nobody wanted to be governor more than me, this was not just about an election cycle. This was about creating the kind of change in this state that really allows the voices of everyday people to show up again in our government.”
There was no immediate response from DeSantis or his campaign.
Gillum’s announcement came as most Florida counties were winding down their hand recount in the state’s contentious U.S. Senate race.
Some wave flags to welcome Trump, others too busy packing
PARADISE, Calif. — Some who fled a Northern California town leveled by the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century waved American flags to welcome President Donald Trump, who walked among the scorched ruins Saturday, but others said they were focused on packing up what little they had left and getting to their next temporary home.
California’s outgoing and incoming governors joined Trump as he surveyed the devastation in the town of Paradise, population 27,000, and visited a firefighting command center. Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom had welcomed Trump’s visit, declaring it’s time “to pull together for the people of California.”
The tour came as firefighters raced to get ahead of strong winds expected overnight and authorities struggled to locate 1,011 people who were unaccounted for. Authorities stressed that not all on the list are believed missing, but the death toll has risen daily, standing at 71.
Those who lost their homes or were looking for loved ones were also busy — some trying to pack up at a makeshift camp next to a Walmart in the city of Chico. No one there appeared to be paying close attention to Trump’s visit, with evacuees saying they were told to leave by Sunday.
Maggie Missere-Crowder said if Trump came to the Walmart, she would shake his hand, but she otherwise needed to focus on getting her tent and plastic storage boxes with food and other items into her pickup truck.
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In defeat, Abrams casts aside traditional expectations
ATLANTA — Stacey Abrams broke the rules of politics until the very end.
The Georgia Democrat who came about 60,000 votes shy of becoming America’s first black woman governor refused to follow the traditional script for defeated politicians who offer gracious congratulations to their victorious competitor and gently exit the stage. Instead, Abrams ended her campaign in an unapologetically indignant tone that established herself as a leading voting rights advocate.
“I acknowledge that former Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be certified as the victor in the 2018 gubernatorial election,” Abrams said in a fiery 12-minute address. “But to watch an elected official … baldly pin his hopes for election on the suppression of the people’s democratic right to vote has been truly appalling.”
“So let’s be clear,” Abrams concluded, “this is not a speech of concession.”
Ending a race while pointedly refusing to concede would typically risk drawing a “sore loser” label that would be impossible to shake in any future political campaign. But Democrats and even some Republicans say she is likely to emerge from the closely fought governor’s race with her political future on solid ground.
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Recount adds to Florida’s reputation for bungling elections
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Mark Toepfer came to this spit of sand on the Tampa Bay shore to soak up the sun, drink a beer and maybe do a little fishing — not to talk about elections.
But talk he did when asked for his thoughts on whether Florida, as a judge recently put it, is “the laughingstock of the world” when it comes to voting.
“We’re the only state that has problems year after year,” the shirtless 58-year-old said, shaking his head. “Why is it like this? Is it the people in charge? Are our machines not like other states’ machines? Fraud? Incompetence? It’s hard to say.”
With races for U.S. Senate and governor still officially undecided, the state’s latest recount only adds to its reputation for bungling elections. To much of the world, vote-counting confusion is as authentically Florida as jam-packed theme parks, alligators on golf courses and the ubiquity of Pitbull (the Miami rapper, not the dog).
Florida’s history of election woes dates back to 2000, when it took more than five weeks for the state to declare George W. Bush the victor over Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes, thus giving Bush the presidency. Back then, punch-card ballots were punch lines. Photos of election workers using magnifying glasses to search for hanging chads and pregnant chads symbolized the painstaking process.
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