Virus will kill many more, WH projects as briefings resume

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration launched its new level-with-America health briefings Wednesday with a projection that as many as 90,000 more in the U.S. will die from the coronavirus in the next four weeks — a sobering warning as the government strains to improve delivery and injection of vaccines.

The tone of the hourlong briefing was in line with President Joe Biden’s promise to be straight with the nation about the state of the outbreak that has already claimed more than 425,000 U.S. lives. It marked a sharp contrast to what had become the Trump show in the past administration, when public health officials were repeatedly undermined by a president who shared his unproven ideas without hesitation.

The deaths projection wasn’t much different from what Biden himself has said, but nonetheless served as a stark reminder of the brutal road ahead.

“I know this is not news we all want to hear, but this is something we must say so we are all aware,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “If we are united in action we can turn things around.”

The new briefings, set for three times a week, are part of Biden’s attempt to rebuild trust and mobilize Americans to follow health guidance on the coronavirus and to break down public resistance to the vaccine.

Biden: ‘We can’t wait any longer’ to address climate crisis

WASHINGTON — In the most ambitious U.S. effort to stave off the worst of climate change, President Joe Biden signed executive orders Wednesday to transform the nation’s heavily fossil-fuel powered economy into a clean-burning one, pausing oil and gas leasing on federal land and targeting subsidies for those industries.

The directives aim to conserve 30 percent of the country’s lands and waters in the next 10 years, double the nation’s offshore wind energy, and move to an all-electric federal vehicle fleet, among other changes. Biden’s sweeping plan is aimed at staving off the worst of global warming caused by burning fossil fuels.

But his effort it also carries political risk for the president and Democrats as oil- and coal-producing states face job losses from moves to sharply increase U.S. reliance on clean energy such as wind and solar power.

“We can’t wait any longer” to address the climate crisis, Biden said at the White House. “We see with our own eyes. We know it in our bones. It is time to act.”

He said his orders will “supercharge our administration’s ambitious plan to confront the existential threat of climate change.”

Democrat floats Trump censure as conviction unlikely

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said Wednesday that he’s discussing with colleagues whether a censure resolution to condemn former President Donald Trump for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol could be an alternative to impeachment, even as the Senate proceeds with a trial.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said the impeachment trial will move forward. But Kaine’s proposal is an acknowledgement that the Senate is unlikely to convict Trump of inciting the riot, a troubling prospect for many lawmakers who believe Trump must be held accountable in some way for the Capitol attack. If he were convicted, the Senate could then hold a second vote to ban him from office.

A censure would not hold the power of a conviction, but it would put the Senate on record as disapproving of Trump’s role in the insurrection, which came as Congress was counting electoral votes to confirm Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Just before Trump’s supporters broke through windows and busted through the Capitol’s doors, he gave a fiery speech outside the White House urging them to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.

From wire sources

Talk of finding a punishment that more senators could rally around flared a day after just five Republicans joined Democrats in a Senate test vote over the legitimacy of Trump’s trial. It was unclear, though, whether other Democrats, or any Republicans, would sign on to Kaine’s proposal. House Democrats are busy preparing their formal case against the former president for inciting an insurrection, with arguments starting the week of Feb. 8.

“Make no mistake — there will be a trial, and the evidence against the former president will be presented, in living color, for the nation and every one of us to see,” Schumer said Wednesday.

Proud Boys leader was government informant, records show

The leader of the Proud Boys, who was arrested in Washington shortly before the Capitol riot, previously worked undercover and cooperated with investigators after he was accused of fraud in 2012, court documents show.

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio helped law enforcement in a variety of investigations nearly a decade ago by providing information and going undercover, the records show.

The Proud Boys is a far-right, male chauvinist extremist group that seized on the Trump administration’s policies and was a major agitator during earlier protests and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. The Proud Boys have railed against a “deep state” and work to break down the current government system, and so the revelations of Tarrio as a federal informant came as quite a surprise.

The details of Tarrio’s cooperation, which was first reported Wednesday by Reuters, were found in a transcript of a 2014 hearing in federal court in Florida regarding his sentence for participating in a scheme involving the resale of diabetic test strips.

The prosecutor and Tarrio’s defense attorney both cited Tarrio’s extensive cooperation in arguing that his sentence of 30 months should be cut. The judge agreed to reduce his sentence to 16 months, the records show.

Battling COVID-19 proving deadly for Peru’s doctor corps

LIMA, Peru — Black-and-white pictures of dozens of men and women, some in their 30s and others much older, line the perimeter of a bright yellow building overlooking the Pacific, a two-story-tall black ribbon covering part of the facade and a Peruvian flag at a half-staff near the door.

The makeshift memorial is for fallen “pandemic soldiers” — doctors who have died since the coronavirus struck this South American nation last year and unraveled the public health care system.

“Our country, like the other countries in the world, is not prepared for this pandemic. Even more so, the most affected are developing countries like ours,” said Dr. Gerardo Campos, a spokesman for the Medical College of Peru.

The college represents physicians and its headquarters is the site of the memorial, where a cleaning worker wearing a face mask recently dusted off each photo and placed flowers in front of them.

“Peru has been deeply affected, and within population groups, those on the front line are the doctors — the first-line soldiers who have battled COVID,” Campos added. “We have had great losses. … The Medical College has been seen affected in its entirety.”

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US House data not ready until April, states’ data after July

The U.S. Census Bureau is aiming to deliver the long-delayed numbers used for divvying up congressional seats by the end of April, but a holdup on redistricting data could disrupt several states’ abilities to redraw their own legislative maps ahead of upcoming elections, an agency official said Wednesday.

The new goal for finishing data processing for the apportionment numbers used for congressional seats is now April 30. But a separate set of data used for redrawing districts for states and local governments won’t be ready until after July in the most likely scenario, Kathleen Styles, a top bureau official, said during a presentation for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The delay in the release of redistricting data could be problematic for states that have deadlines this year for redrawing their districts. New Jersey and Virginia also have elections this year.

“This is a subject of vigorous internal debate right now,” said Styles, who added the statistical agency isn’t saying for now when the redistricting data will be ready. “The worst thing we could do is deliver data that has question marks.”

New Jersey was prepared for such a scenario, with voters last fall approving a constitutional amendment that would address late-arriving redistricting data. The constitutional amendment keeps the current legislative districts for this year’s gubernatorial and legislative elections, provided a redistricting commission eventually redraws the districts by March 2022. New Jersey’s primary elections are in June.

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Oscar-winning, ‘irreplaceable’ Cloris Leachman dies at 94

LOS ANGELES — Cloris Leachman, an Oscar-winner for her portrayal of a lonely housewife in “The Last Picture Show” and a comedic delight as the fearsome Frau Blücher in “Young Frankenstein” and self-absorbed neighbor Phyllis on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” has died. She was 94.

Leachman died in her sleep of natural causes at her home in Encinitas, California, publicist Monique Moss said Wednesday. Her daughter Dinah Englund was at her side, Moss said.

A character actor of extraordinary range, Leachman defied typecasting. In her early television career, she appeared as Timmy’s mother on the “Lassie” series. She played a frontier prostitute in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” a crime spree family member in “Crazy Mama,” and Blücher in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein,” in which the very mention of her name drew equine commentary.

“Every time I hear a horse whinny I will forever think of Cloris’ unforgettable Frau Blücher,” Brooks tweeted, calling Leachman “insanely talented” and “irreplaceable.”

Salutes from other admiring colleagues poured in on social media. Steve Martin said Leachman “brought comedy’s mysteries to the big and small screen.” “Nothing I could say would top the enormity of my love for you,” posted Ed Asner of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” “Applause on every entrance and exit,” said Rosie O’Donnell.

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Facebook Q4 results soar; Zuckerberg hits Apple over privacy

Facebook capped a tumultuous 2020 with soaring earnings in the final quarter, but the company forecast challenges in 2021 that include a coming privacy update by Apple that could limit the social network’s ad targeting capabilities.

The Apple move drew a rare public rebuke from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who during a conference call accused Apple of favoring its own interests and not those of users.

Facebook said its already enormous user base grew in the fourth quarter as people stayed home during the pandemic and reported revenues buoyed by a shift to digital advertising amid coronavirus-related economic uncertainty.

But the company predicted uncertainty for 2021 and said its revenue in the latter half of the year could face significant pressure. Because revenue grew so quickly in the second half of 2020, the social network could have trouble keeping up that pace.

“Clearly the pandemic has also continued to help Facebook’s monthly active user growth to remain strong in many regions, including in the U.S. and Canada, where prior to the pandemic, user gains had slowed to a crawl,” said eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson. But she noted that the number of daily users in this region declined, suggesting that people in the U.S. and Canada are moving elsewhere — probably TikTok, which grew quickly in 2020.