Category: For Edit

 

The NFL is further limiting player access to team facilities as it attempts to enhance safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a memo sent to the 32 clubs and obtained by The Associated Press, teams must close their facilities for two days after games, with some exceptions.

Beginning Monday, that all teams playing on a Sunday must close those facilities the next two days — except for clubs playing on the subsequent Thursday. Only players needing medical attention for injuries or in rehab programs may enter the team complex.

Coaches can access the facility but must work in their own offices and can’t conduct meetings except virtually.

Teams playing on Monday nights can next have players in their facilities on Thursday, and teams with Thursday night games must close the complex to players until Sunday.

“There are no exceptions to this prohibition,” the league wrote. “Approvals previously received for in-person meetings will not apply on these two days.”

Locker rooms and cafeterias must be closed during those days.

Tryouts will be permitted on those days with only “essential football personnel” attending. Players trying out for a team are subject to current testing rules.

Such arrangements were agreed to by the players’ union.

USA Today first reported the memo being sent to the clubs.

The NFL also is lifting the 62-player game travel limit for teams. Each team can determine how many players to take to road games, including practice squad players. That takes effect for this week’s games, and should help with filling out the 48-man roster in case of issues with the coronavirus on game days.

All players who attend games for both home and visiting teams and will be on the sideline or in a designated stadium space with other players and personnel must stay at the team hotel the night before the game.

NFL protocols have been adjusted constantly since training camps, with stiffer restrictions put in place in recent weeks as the nation undergoes a surge in the novel coronavirus.

The league had its second major outbreak in the last two weeks, with the Baltimore Ravens having at least two dozen people testing positive. That led to shuffling Baltimore games at Pittsburgh from Thanksgiving night to last Sunday, then to Tuesday and again to Wednesday, when the Steelers won 19-14.

“Finally,” the league wrote in the memo, “please remind all players and staff that gatherings among players and/or club staff of any number outside of the club facility are prohibited at all times pursuant to the intensive protocol.”

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More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NF

 

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— Associated Press

Very few of Georgia’s more than 100,000 voting-age Native Americans cast ballots in November. Even a small increase could make a difference in the Senate runoffs.

— NYT: Top Stories

In the latest Diary of a Song, the Prince Estate and his closest collaborators offer an unprecedented peek into Prince’s creative process.

— NYT: Top Stories

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet picks are quickly running into the political reality of a narrowly controlled Senate that will leave the new Democratic administration dependent on rival Republicans to get anything done.

Under leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican senators will hold great sway in confirming Biden’s nominees regardless of which party holds the majority after runoff elections in January. Biden will have little room to maneuver and few votes to spare.

As Biden rolled out his economic team Tuesday — after introducing his national security team last week — he asked the Senate to give his nominees prompt review, saying they “deserve and expect nothing less.”

But that seems unlikely. Republicans are swiftly signaling that they’re eager to set the terms of debate and exact a price for their votes. Biden’s choice for budget chief, Neera Tanden, was instantly rejected as “radioactive.” His secretary of state nominee, Antony Blinken, quickly ran into resistance from GOP senators blasting his record amid their own potential 2024 White House campaigns.

Even as most Republican senators still refuse to publicly acknowledge President Donald Trump’s defeat, they are launching new battles for the Biden era. The GOP is suspended between an outgoing president it needs to keep close — Trump can still make or break careers with a single tweet — and the new one they are unsure how to approach. Almost one month since the Nov. 3 election, McConnell and Biden have not yet spoken.

“The disagreement, disorientation and confusion among Republicans will make them inclined to unite in opposition,” said Ramesh Ponnuru, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, during a Tuesday briefing.

“They don’t necessarily know what they’re for, but they can all agree they don’t like Neera Tanden.”

A new president often runs into trouble with at least a few Cabinet or administrative nominees, individuals who rub the Senate the wrong way and fail to win enough votes for confirmation or are forced to withdraw after grueling public hearings.

Trump’s nominees faced enormous resistance from Senate Democrats, who used their minority-party status to slow-walk confirmation for even lower-level positions. It’s been an escalation of the Senate’s procedural battles for at least a decade.

But the battles ahead are particularly sharp as Biden tries to stand up an administration during the COVID-19 crisis and economic freefall, rebuilding a government after Trump chased away many career professionals and appointed often-untested newcomers.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer praised the expertise Biden’s choices will bring to government. He scoffed at Republicans for complaining about Tanden’s penchant for sharp tweets after four years of Trump’s endless Twitter barbs that GOP senators often tried to ignore.

“After what all we went through over the past four years, I would expect that almost all of President-elect Biden’s nominees would be widely acceptable,” Schumer said from the Senate floor.

Instead, he warned, the “switch is starting to flip” into Republican opposition.

To be sure, some key Biden choices will have an easier path to confirmation. Janet Yellen, who would become the nation’s first female treasury secretary, drew few public complaints from Republicans. Many had voted to confirm her in 2014 as Federal Reserve chair.

Democrats have their own battles ahead. Biden faces the daunting task of keeping the party’s centrist and progressive factions from splintering as he tries to put his team in place.

Republicans now hold a 50-48 advantage in the Senate, but if Democrats win both Georgia seats in the Jan. 5 runoff elections, they would wrest control, since the vice president, which will be Kamala Harris, becomes a tie-breaker.

The nomination fights will serve as an early indicator of the approach Republicans take toward Biden as they find their political footing in a post-Trump environment.

Trump continues to wield great influence over the party as he is being eased out, and senators, in particular, need to keep him close for the Georgia runoff elections.

The president is planning to visit Georgia on Saturday, where two GOP senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, failed to clear the 50% threshold to win reelection in November. Perdue faces Democrat Jon Ossoff and Loeffler faces Democrat Raphael Warnock in a state that flipped to support Biden.

McConnell has said almost nothing about Biden’s nominees or next year’s agenda as he continues to give Trump the time and space to challenge election results in court cases that have delivered few victories.

Instead, he’s letting other Senate Republicans, particularly those seen as having White House ambitions, make names for themselves. GOP Sens. Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley, among others, have all hurled pointed complaints about Biden’s picks.

Despite Trump’s defeat, Republicans in Congress may have little incentive to work with Biden. They performed better than Trump, retaining many House and Senate seats they were expected to lose. One lesson Republicans learned from the November election may be to keep doing what they’ve been doing.

McConnell gave a nod toward what’s ahead after GOP senators met Tuesday by conference call, forced to abandon their traditional sit-down lunches as the COVID-19 crisis surges and threatens to further disrupt the Capitol.

McConnell talked about finishing the remaining few weeks of “this government” and “the new administration” to come.

 

— Associated Press

Biden soared among crucial suburban voters. Democrats? Not so much.

— NYT: Top Stories

Now is no time for complacency. The next Congress must shore up our institutions.

— NYT: Top Stories

 

The Nasdaq stock exchange is seeking U.S. authority to require more diversity in the boardrooms of Nasdaq-listed companies, or to explain why they can not.

It is the first major exchange to pursue such a requirement.

The proposal filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, if approved, would require all companies listed on the exchange to publicly disclose consistent, transparent diversity statistics about their board of directors.

It would require most Nasdaq-listed companies to have, or explain why they don’t have, at least two diverse directors. This includes having one board member who self-identifies as female and one who self-identifies as either an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ. Foreign companies and smaller reporting companies would have additional flexibility in satisfying this requirement with two female directors.

Corporate boards are overwhelmingly white and male.

According to the 2018 Board Diversity Census from the Alliance for Board Diversity and the consulting firm Deloitte, women held just 22% of Fortune 500 seats in 2018, compared to 20% a year earlier and 16 percent in 2010. White men held 66% of Fortune 500 board seats in 2018. Blacks held nearly 9% of seats in 2018, compared with nearly 8% in 2010.

“This proposal and partnership gives companies an opportunity to make progress toward increasing representation of women, underrepresented minorities and the LGBTQ+ community on their boards,” Nelson Griggs, president of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, said in a prepared statement. “Corporate diversity, at all levels, opens up a clear path to innovation and growth. We are inspired by the support from our issuers and the financial community with this effort and look forward to working together with companies of all sizes to create stronger and more inclusive boards.”

The Nasdaq contains all of companies that trade on the exchange, more than 3,300 of them. It is dominated by technology companies, but there are a lot of financial, biotech and industrial companies as well.

Nasdaq said the proposal’s goal is to give stakeholders a better understanding of a company’s current board composition and to bolster investor confidence that all listed companies are considering diversity when the look for new board members.

The proposal would require all Nasdaq-listed companies to publicly disclose board-level diversity statistics through Nasdaq’s proposed disclosure framework within one year of the SEC’s approval of the listing rule.

All companies will be expected to have one diverse director within two years of the SEC’s approval of the listing rule. Companies listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market and Nasdaq Global Market will be expected to have two diverse directors within four years of listing rule approval. Companies listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market will be expected to have two diverse directors within five years of the SEC’s approval.

Companies that can’t meet the board composition objectives within the required timeframes won’t be subject to delisting if they provide a public explanation of their reasons for not meeting the objectives.

Nasdaq began in 1971 with the world’s first electronic stock market. It currently has more than 4,000 company listings on its exchange. The Nasdaq has been a destination for many tech companies, including Apple, which launched its initial public offering on the exchange in 1980. Some other tech companies its drawn in include Microsoft, Cisco, Amazon and Google, which is now part of Alphabet.

Nasdaq named Adena Friedman as its CEO in 2016, the first woman to lead a major U.S. exchange.

 

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— Associated Press

 

Here’s what’s happening Monday with the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.:

THREE THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

— The rush to develop a vaccine gained steam with the news from Moderna Inc. that it would ask U.S. and European regulators to allow emergency use of its vaccine. Early results show the vaccine is more than 94 percent effective.

— The virus has thrown the NFL season into chaos yet again. The Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers contest was moved from Thanksgiving to Tuesday with more than 20 Ravens on the COVID-19 list, and the game is still in jeopardy of not being played as scheduled. The Denver Broncos started an undrafted rookie wide receiver at quarterback because of COVID-19 protocol violations.

— Tough new restrictions are taking effect across California as the state hit a new record with 7,400 coronavirus hospitalizations. Los Angeles County, home to 10 million people — imposed new rules calling for residents to stay home as much as possible.

THE NUMBERS: The long Thanksgiving weekend will create volatility in the major virus metrics early this week. The U.S. is averaging 162,000 new cases a day over the past week, and a record 93,000 people are hospitalized with the virus.

QUOTABLE: “I allowed myself to cry for the first time.” — Dr. Tal Zaks, chief medical officer for Moderna after learning about the positive results from its vaccine study.

ICYMI: Law enforcement authorities around the country are on high alert for potential scams related to the COVID-19 vaccine. They are worried about criminal organizations exploiting Americans with things like fake vaccines.

ON THE HORIZON: With the advances in vaccine development, the ball will soon be in the court of the Food and Drug Administration. Its Dec. 10 meeting could pave the way for the immediate distribution of the Pfizer vaccine.

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Find AP’s full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

 

— Associated Press

 

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s top elections official on Monday announced investigations into potential violations of election law even as he continued to defend the integrity of the state’s election against what he said are baseless attacks.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said during a news conference at the state Capitol that his office continues to investigate any credible claims of illegal voting and violations of state election law. His office currently has more than 250 open cases from this year, he said.

He singled out groups that he said are working to register people in other states to vote in a high-profile runoff election for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats. His office’s 23 investigators also continue to look into allegations of problems with absentee ballots, as well as claims of people who voted twice, people who cast a ballot in a dead person’s name and non-residents who voted in Georgia, he said.

But Raffensperger also punched back — as he has repeatedly in the weeks since the Nov. 3 general election — at allegations of widespread election fraud that are circulating online. President Donald Trump, who narrowly lost to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia, is among those criticizing the state’s handling of the election.

“There are those who are exploiting the emotions of many Trump supporters with fantastic claims, half-truths, misinformation and, frankly, they’re misleading the president as well, apparently,” Raffensperger said.

The secretary of state’s office is looking into a sworn statement from a Republican official in Gwinnett County, in Atlanta’s northeastern suburbs, that says there were more absentee ballots than absentee ballot envelopes, Raffensperger said.

“This is the kind of specific charge that our office can investigate and ascertain the truth,” he said.

Raffensperger said his investigators are also looking into specific allegations of improper actions by four groups.

America Votes has sent absentee ballot applications to people at addresses where they haven’t lived in more than 25 years, while Vote Forward tried to register a dead Alabama woman to vote in Georgia and the New Georgia Project sent voter registration applications to New York City, he said.

A spokesperson for America Votes said in an email to The Associated Press that the group is working to make sure every voice is heard.

“America Votes has mailed registered voters in Georgia applications to safely and securely vote by mail in the January runoffs. These mailings were sent to the list of registered voters maintained by the Secretary of State,” Sahil Mehrotra wrote.

Vote Forward and the New Georgia Project didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment Monday.

Raffensperger also said a group called Operation New Voter Registration Georgia is telling college students they can change their registration to vote in Georgia for the runoff and then change it back to another state after the election. That group doesn’t seem to have an online presence, and an email sent to an address on a flier circulating on Twitter bounced back, saying the account doesn’t exist.

County election workers around the state are currently working on a recount of the presidential race that was requested by the Trump campaign, and Raffensperger said he expects them to finish by the Wednesday night deadline. Under state law, the losing candidate can request a recount when the margin is less than 0.5%. Certified results showed Trump losing to Biden by 12,670 votes, or 0.25%.

The recount, which is being done using scanners that read and tabulate votes, is the third time the votes in the presidential race are being counted in Georgia. After the initial count following Election Day, Raffensperger selected the presidential race for an audit required by state law. Because of the tight margin, he said, the audit required the roughly 5 million votes in that contest to be recounted by hand.

 

— Associated Press