Restaurant workers out of work again as virus surges anew

Waiters and bartenders are being thrown out of work — again — as governors and local officials shut down indoor dining and drinking establishments to combat the nationwide surge in coronavirus infections that is overwhelming hospitals and dashing hopes for a quick economic recovery.

And the timing, just before the holidays, couldn't be worse.

Restaurant owner Greg Morena in Los Angeles County was trying to figure out his next step after officials in the nation's largest county banned in-person dining for at least three weeks, beginning Wednesday. But he was mainly dreading having to notify his employees.

“To tell you, ‘I can’t employ you during the holidays,’ to staff that has family and kids, I haven’t figured that part out yet. It’s the heaviest weight that I carry,” said Morena, who had to close one restaurant earlier in the year and has two operating at the Santa Monica Pier.

Randine Karnitz, a server in Elk River, Minnesota, said her boss laid her off last week after Gov. Tim Walz announced that bars, restaurants and gyms would close for four weeks as infections spiked to an all-time high and pushed hospitals to the breaking point.

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'America is back': Biden pushes past Trump era with nominees

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Declaring "America is back," President-elect Joe Biden introduced his national security team on Tuesday, his first substantive offering of how he’ll shift from Trump-era “America First” policies by relying on experts from the Democratic establishment to be some of his most important advisers.

“Together, these public servants will restore America globally, its global leadership and its moral leadership,” Biden said from a theatre in his longtime home of Wilmington, Delaware. “It’s a team that reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it.”

The nominees are all Washington veterans with ties to former President Barack Obama’s administration, a sign of Biden’s effort to resume some form of normalcy after the tumult of President Donald Trump’s four years in office. There are risks to the approach as Republicans plan attacks and progressives fret that Biden is tapping some officials who were too cautious and incremental the last time they held power.

Still, Biden's nominees were a clear departure from Trump, whose Cabinet has largely consisted of men, almost all of them white. Biden's picks included several women and people of colour, some of whom would break barriers if confirmed to their new positions.

They stood behind Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris spaced apart and wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, a contrast with Trump and many of his top aides who have largely eschewed facial coverings.

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EXPLAINER: Why the Dow topped 30,000 for the first time

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street busted through its latest milestone Tuesday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 30,000 for the first time.

The Dow rose 454.97 points, or 1.5%, to close at 30,046.24. Investors were encouraged by progress in the development of coronavirus vaccines and news that the transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden is finally beginning. Traders also welcomed word that Biden has selected Janet Yellen, a widely respected former Federal Reserve chair, as treasury secretary.

The milestone is an attention-grabbing psychological threshold, and it’s an encouraging signal that the market’s rally is broadening beyond the handful of stocks that carried Wall Street through the pandemic. But the Dow at 30,000 means less to most investors’ 401(k) accounts than the fact that broader market indexes are also at record highs.

Here’s a look at how the Dow has rallied to its latest multiple of 10,000, the first time that’s happened since January 2017, and what it means for investors.

WHAT IS THE DOW, EXACTLY?

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Biden seeks swift Cabinet votes, but GOP Senate stays silent

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President-elect Joe Biden started rolling out his administrative team, one voice has been notably silent: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Senate Republicans will hold great sway in confirming or denying Biden’s Cabinet nominees, regardless of which party controls the narrowly split Senate after runoff elections. But key Republican senators, including the GOP leader, are keeping quiet, for now, choosing their battles ahead.

In announcing his national security team, Biden appealed Tuesday to the Senate to give the nominees “a prompt hearing" and "begin the work to heal and unite America and the world.”

The soonest the Senate would consider the nominations is Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, when past presidents often have been able to win swift confirmation of top national security officials shortly after taking the oath of office.

But with President Donald Trump still disputing the election, McConnell is setting the tone for Senate Republicans by not publicly congratulating Biden or acknowledging Trump's defeat. He wants to give the president time to contest the vote, even as Trump's legal team has been losing most of the cases.

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OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma pleads guilty in criminal case

Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty Tuesday to three criminal charges, formally taking responsibility for its part in an opioid epidemic that has contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths but also angering critics who want to see individuals held accountable, in addition to the company.

In a virtual hearing with a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, the OxyContin maker admitted impeding the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's efforts to combat the addiction crisis.

Purdue acknowledged that it had not maintained an effective program to prevent prescription drugs from being diverted to the black market, even though it had told the DEA it did have such a program, and that it provided misleading information to the agency as a way to boost company manufacturing quotas.

It also admitted paying doctors through a speakers program to induce them to write more prescriptions for its painkillers.

And it admitted paying an electronic medical records company to send doctors information on patients that encouraged them to prescribe opioids.

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Trump vents about election as agencies aid Biden transition

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump insisted Tuesday that he is not giving up his fight to overturn the election results, but across the federal government, preparations were beginning in earnest to support President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration.

Within hours of the General Services Administration’s acknowledgement Monday evening of Biden’s victory in the Nov. 3 election, career federal officials opened the doors of agencies to hundreds of transition aides ready to prepare for his Jan. 20 inauguration. And on Tuesday, Trump signed off on allowing Biden to receive the presidential daily brief, the highly classified briefing prepared by the nation’s intelligence community for the government’s most senior leaders.

An administration official said logistics on when and where Biden will first receive the briefing were still being worked out.

Biden, in an interview with “NBC Nightly News,” said he was also working out a meeting with the White House's coronavirus task force and vaccine distribution effort.

“So I think we’re going to not be so far behind the curve as we thought we might be in the past,” he said. "And there’s a lot of immediate discussion, and I must say, the outreach has been sincere. There has not been begrudging so far. And I don’t expect it to be. So yes it’s already begun.”

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EXPLAINER: China's claims of coronavirus on frozen foods

BEIJING (AP) — China says it has detected the coronavirus on packages of imported frozen food, but how valid are its claims and how serious is the threat to public health?

Frozen shrimp imported from an Ecuadorian company was banned for one week on Tuesday in a continuing series of such temporary bans.

While experts say the virus can survive for a time on cardboard and plastic containers, it remains unclear how serious a risk that poses. Like so many issues surrounding the pandemic, the matter has swiftly become politicized.

China has rejected complaints from the U.S. and others, saying it is putting people’s lives first. Experts say they generally don’t consider the presence of the virus on packaging to be a significant health risk.

A look at the issue and some of the conclusions so far:

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Keep the mask: A vaccine won't end the US crisis right away

NEW YORK (AP) — Don’t even think of putting the mask away anytime soon.

Despite the expected arrival of COVID-19 vaccines in just a few weeks, it could take several months — probably well into 2021 — before things get back to something close to normal in the U.S. and Americans can once again go to the movies, cheer at an NBA game or give Grandma a hug.

The first, limited shipments of the vaccine would mark just the beginning of what could be a long and messy road toward the end of the pandemic that has upended life and killed more than a quarter-million people in the U.S. In the meantime, Americans are being warned not to let their guard down.

“If you’re fighting a battle and the cavalry is on the way, you don’t stop shooting; you keep going until the cavalry gets here, and then you might even want to continue fighting,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert, said last week.

This week, AstraZeneca became the third vaccine maker to say early data indicates its shots are highly effective. Pfizer last week asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization to begin distributing its vaccine, and Moderna is expected to do the same any day. Federal officials say the first doses will ship within a day of authorization.

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Punishing hurricanes to spur more Central American migration

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) — At a shelter in this northern Honduran city, Lilian Gabriela Santos Sarmiento says back-to-back hurricanes that hit with devastating fury this month have overturned her life. Her home in what was once a pretty neighbourhood in nearby La Lima was destroyed by flooding.

The 29-year-old woman who never finished middle school had managed to build a life for herself, most recently cleaning COVID-19 wards at a local hospital. Now, having lost everything, she says she sees no future in Honduras at her age and with her level of education.

“I think that in Honduras it is very difficult to do again what it took me 10 years to do,” Santos said. So her plan is to leave for the United States.

“If there’s a caravan, I’m going," she said, referring to the large groups of migrants who make the arduous journey together, often on foot.

Inside shelters and improvised camps across Central America, families who lost everything in the severe flooding set off by the two major hurricanes are arriving at the same conclusion.

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Trump skips turkey jokes, gives thanks for COVID-19 vaccines

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nostalgia was in and jokes were out Tuesday as President Donald Trump offered a reprieve to a pair of meaty turkeys at the traditional Thanksgiving turkey pardon ceremony at the White House.

The National Turkey Federation presented the White House with two birds, Corn and Cob. Corn was declared the national Thanksgiving turkey, though both will retire to a new home on the campus of Iowa State University.

It’s not the first time the typically light-hearted turkey pardon ceremony has taken place in a tense time for the nation.

This time, the ceremony came amid a global pandemic and as Trump refuses to concede he lost his reelection bid. In his remarks, Trump cited the vaccines that could soon receive emergency approval from U.S. regulators.

“We give thanks for the vaccines and therapies that will soon end the pandemic," Trump said at one point. He did not reference the recent surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases in many parts of the country.

News from © The Associated Press, 2020