Senate Democrats

US COVID Deaths Top 250,000 as New York City Schools Halt in-Person Classes

Nearly 79,000 COVID-19 patients were reported in US hospitals as of Wednesday, the highest number yet for a single day, up from about 75,000 on Tuesday.

New York: The US death toll from COVID-19 surpassed a grim new milestone of 250,000 lives lost on Wednesday, as NewYork City‘s public school system, the nation’s largest, called a halt to in-classroom instruction, citing a jump in coronavirus infection rates.

The decision to shutter schools and revert exclusively to at-home learning, starting on Thursday, came as state and local officials nationwide imposed restrictions on social and economic life to tamp down a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations heading into winter.

But eight months after New York City emerged as the nation’s first major flashpoint of the epidemic – its hospitals besieged and streets virtually devoid of human activity – the epicentre of the public health crisis has shifted to the upper Midwest.

Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, one of several states in the region dogged by the country’s highest case rates per capita, ordered all restaurants, bars, fitness centres and entertainment venues closed, and all youth sports cancelled, for four weeks.

More than 90% of hospitals’ intensive-care unit beds are already occupied in the eastern half of the state, Walz told an evening news briefing, adding: “We are at a dangerous point in this pandemic.”

The action by New York schools, announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio via Twitter, doubtless came as a relief to some teachers, many of whom have expressed fear of being placed at increased risk of exposure to the highly contagious respiratory virus.

But it will bring renewed hardship for working parents forced to make childcare arrangements once more.

“I could lose my job. … I am stuck between bills and my son, and it’s a hard choice. Really hard,” said Felix Franco, 30, a US Postal Service employee who has been on leave recovering from COVID-19 himself since spring and was planning to return to work in two weeks.

Franco, who said he had no one else lined up to care for his 6-year-old son during the school day, is already behind on his monthly car bill and racking up credit card debt.

New York City has seen a late-autumn resurgence of the virus after a summertime lull. Schools have been following a staggered, part-time system of classroom instruction since September, with 1.1 million students dividing their school week between in-person and online learning.

But de Blasio said all instruction would switch back to distance learning again because of the positive rate on coronavirus tests in the city rose to a seven-day average of 3%, the threshold for ceasing in-person classes.

Also read: COVID-19: Moderna Vaccine Is Second To Exceed Expectations

“We must fight back the second wave of COVID-19,” he said.

New York joins other large school districts in cities like Boston and Detroit that have recently cancelled in-person learning. Within the past week, the Clark County School District, which includes Las Vegas and is the fifth-largest in the United States, and Philadelphia’s public school system both postponed plans to return to in-person instruction.

Hospitalisations surging

As of Wednesday, COVID-19 had claimed at least 250,016 lives in the United States, which has documented about 11.5 million infections since the pandemic emerged, according to a Reuters tally of public healthcare data. The United States leads the world in both categories.

More than 1,400 of those victims perished during the past 24 hours.

Nearly 79,000 COVID-19 patients were reported in U.S. hospitals as of Wednesday, the highest number yet for a single day, up from about 75,000 on Tuesday, Reuters’ tally showed.

Health experts say greater social mixing and indoor gatherings during the holiday season, combined with colder weather, could accelerate the surge, threatening to overwhelm already strained healthcare systems.

NBC News reported on Wednesday that more than 900 Mayo Clinic personnel in Minnesota and Wisconsin had been diagnosed withCOVID-19 in the past two weeks – nearly a third of the cases among the medical centre’s Midwestern staff since March.

The Midwest has become the new U.S. epicentre of contagion, reporting almost a half-million cases during the week ending on Monday.

Students ride on a scooter after exiting school, following the announcement to close New York City public schools, as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues to rise, in Brooklyn, New York, US, November 18, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Brendan McDermid

Ohio’s Cuyahoga County, which encompasses Cleveland, ordered residents on Wednesday to stay at home “to the greatest extent possible” through December 17, 2020, in response to “an unprecedented recent surge of severely ill patients requiring hospitalization.”

Government officials in at least 21 states, representing both sides of the U.S. political divide, have issued sweeping new public health mandates this month. Those range from stricter limits on social gatherings and non-essential businesses to new requirements for wearing masks in public places.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday called the wave of new restrictions an overreach by state and local officials.

Also read: COVID-19 Has Shown Why Latin America Needs Active Non-Alignment

“The American people know how to protect their health,” she told Fox News in an interview. “We don’t lose our freedom in this country. We make responsible health decisions as individuals.”

Public health experts were less sanguine.

“I’m the most concerned I’ve been since this pandemic started,” Dr Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told CNN on Wednesday.

Forty-one U.S. states have reported daily record increases in COVID-19 cases on November 20, 2020, have registered all-time highs in coronavirus-related deaths from day to day and 26 have reported peaks in hospitalisations, according to the Reuters tally.

In Washington, pressure for a fresh COVID-19 economic relief bill mounted in Congress. Senate Democrats also unveiled legislation to ramp up the national supply of personal protective equipment for healthcare and other frontline workers.

(Reuters)

Legal Challenges to Trump Emergency Declaration Face Uphill Battle

Trump made the declaration after asking Congress to appropriate $5.7 billion for wall construction and lawmakers gave him none.

Reuters: Democratic lawmakers, states and others mulling legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to obtain funds to build a US-Mexico border wall face an uphill and probably losing battle in a showdown likely to be decided by the conservative-majority Supreme Court, legal experts said.

After being rebuffed by the US Congress in his request for $5.7 billion to help build the wall that was a signature 2016 campaign promise, Trump on Friday invoked emergency powers given to the president under a 1976 law. The move, according to the White House, enables Trump to bypass lawmakers and redirect money already appropriated by Congress for other purposes and use it for wall construction.

Peter Shane, a professor at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, said challenges to the emergency declaration could end up as a replay of the legal battle against Trump’s travel ban targeting people from several Muslim-majority nations. The Supreme Court last year upheld the travel ban after lower courts had ruled against Trump, with the justices giving the president deference on immigration and national security issues.

Trump has painted illegal immigration and drug trafficking across the border as a national security threat.

“Courts are reluctant to second-guess the president on matters of national security,” Shane said.

Democrats, state attorneys general and at least one advocacy group have vowed to take the Republican president to court over the declaration.

“I’ll sign the final papers as soon as I get into the Oval Office and we’ll have a national emergency and then we’ll be sued,” Trump said at the White House.

The National Emergencies Act of 1976 has been invoked dozens of times by presidents without a single successful legal challenge. Congress never defined a national emergency in the law.

The legal experts said Trump’s declaration could be challenged on at least two fronts: that there is no genuine emergency and that Trump’s action overstepped his powers because under the US Constitution Congress has authority over federal appropriations, not the president.

Trump made the declaration after asking Congress to appropriate $5.7 billion for wall construction and lawmakers gave him none.

The Supreme Court has a 5-4 conservative majority that includes two justices appointed by Trump, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Chief Justice John Roberts has emerged as the court’s swing vote, and the decision on the legality of Trump’s action could come down to him.

“The handwriting is on the wall here,” said Steven Schwinn, a professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. “The Supreme Court is almost certain to uphold President Trump’s emergency.”

Legal experts said the 1976 law gives presidents vast discretion. Trump plans to redirect $6.7 billion in federal funds to pay for a wall, money that would come from a US treasury forfeiture fund, a defence counter-drug program and the military construction budget.

“The odds favour the president by a significant majority,” George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley said. “He has the authority to make the declaration and he has the money.”

But the administration’s defence of Trump’s action may not be a smooth ride. Lawsuits could delay the use of funds the president is planning to tap, and legal experts said the bulk of funds may be tied up for years.

Trump is running for re-election next year and a loss would mean his presidency ends in January 2021. It is possible the legal fight over the emergency declaration might not be resolved by then.

“My guess is the money, the significant amount of money, won’t flow before the 2020 election,” Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet said.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, and Chuck Schumer, the Republican-led Senate’s top Democrat, said Trump actions “clearly violate the Congress’s exclusive power of the purse.”

Congress is unlikely to muster a veto-proof majority to vote down Trump’s emergency move. The Democratic-led House could try to sue, but courts generally do not allow Congress to litigate after lawmakers fail to legislate, the legal experts said.

States may lead the fight. California governor Gavin Newsom and state attorney general Xavier Becerra, both Democrats, said they anticipated they would sue, saying the state would be harmed because Trump’s action could drain money from its drug-fighting efforts, endangering its residents.

One possible advantage for California is that its case likely could at some point go to the San Francisco-based 9th US circuit court of Appeals, which has dealt Trump setbacks on previous policies including the travel ban and potentially could impose or uphold an injunction against the emergency declaration.

Legal experts said landowners along the border could sue because they face the imminent threat of land seizure by the federal government to build the wall.

Opponents may have more traction arguing that the president is unlawfully trying to tap funds Congress appropriated for the Pentagon, the experts said. The defence department construction money that Trump wants has almost never been used for domestic construction. In addition, Congress required the money be spent supporting military operations, and opponents could argue the border wall fails to qualify.

(Reuters)

US Democrats Support Trump’s China Probe in Rare Bipartisan Move

Tensions between Washington and Beijing have escalated in recent months as Trump has pressed China to cut steel production and rein in North Korea.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, accompanied by senator Robert Casey (D-PA), senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and senator Joe Donnelly (D-IN), speaks during a press conference for the Democrats new economic agenda on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, August 2, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Aaron P. Bernstein

Washington: Three top Democratic senators, in a rare show of bipartisanship, on Wednesday urged US President Donald Trump to stand up to China as he prepares to launch an inquiry into Beijing’s intellectual property and trade practices in coming days.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer pressed the Republican president to skip the investigation and go straight to trade action against China.

“We should certainly go after them,” said Schumer in a statement. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sherrod Brown of Ohio also urged Trump to rein in China.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing have escalated in recent months as Trump has pressed China to cut steel production to ease global oversupply and rein in North Korea’s missile program.

Sources familiar with the current discussions said Trump was expected to issue a presidential memorandum in coming days, citing Chinese theft of intellectual property as a problem. The EU, Japan, Germany and Canada have all expressed concern over China‘s behavior on intellectual property theft.

US trade representative Robert Lighthizer would then initiate an investigation under the Trade Act of 1974’s Section 301, which allows the president to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions to protect US industries, the sources said.

It is unclear whether such a probe would result in trade sanctions against China, which Beijing would almost certainly challenge before the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement to Reuters that China “opposes unilateral actions and trade protectionism in any form.”

A spokesman for China‘s Ministry of Commerce told reporters in Beijing on Thursday that China puts a strong emphasis on intellectual property rights and that all WTO members should respect the rules of the organization.

“We hope the positive momentum of cooperation can continue” following recent bilateral tradetalks, said commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng.

Leverage for negotiations

US Section 301 investigations have not led to trade sanctions since the WTO was launched in 1995. In the 1980s, Section 301 tariffs were levied against Japanese motorcycles, steel and other products.

“This could merely be leverage for bilateral negotiations,” James Bacchus, a former WTO chief judge and USTR official, said of a China intellectual property probe.

Some trade lawyers said that WTO does not have jurisdiction over investment rules such as China‘s requirements that foreign companies transfer technology to their joint venture partners, allowing sanctions to proceed outside the WTO’s dispute settlement system.

But Bacchus argued the US has an obligation to turn first to the Geneva-based institution to resolve trade disputes, adding: “There is an obligation in WTO to enforce intellectual property rights that is not fully explored.”

Lighthizer and Trump‘s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, have complained the WTO is slow to resolve disputes and biased against the US.

The threat comes at a time when Trump has become increasingly frustrated with the level of support from Beijing to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and missile program.

Trump has said in the past that China would get better treatment on trade with the US if it acted more forcefully against Pyongyang. Beijing has said its influence on North Korea is limited.

China counters that trade between the two nations benefits both sides, and that Beijing is willing to improve trade ties.

A senior Chinese official said on Monday there was no link between North Korea’s nuclear program and China-US trade.

Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate finance committee, wrote to Lighthizer urging action to stop China from pressuring US tech companies into giving up intellectual property rights.

Wyden’s state of Oregon is home to several companies that could make a case regarding intellectual property rights and China, including Nike Inc and FLIR Systems Inc.

(Reuters)