Category: For Edit

The scramble to vaccinate New Yorkers has not yet had a significant impact on rising rates of positive tests in many city neighborhoods.

 

— NYT: Top Stories

The new president elevates a liberal Catholicism that once seemed destined to fade away.

 

— NYT: Top Stories

As the Biden administration proposes additional pandemic relief, nonprofit workers see a country facing a growing crisis.

 

— NYT: Top Stories

JoJo Siwa came out as a member of the LGBTQ community over the weekend. 

 

— FOX News

 

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The NFL announced Friday that 7,500 health care workers vaccinated for the coronavirus will be given free tickets to next month’s Super Bowl to be played in Tampa, Florida.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also said in a news release that attendance at the Feb. 7 game would be limited to those workers and about 14,500 other fans. Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has a capacity of just under 66,000, according to its website.

Most of the health care workers who will get free game tickets will come from the Tampa Bay area and central Florida, Goodell said. But he added that all 32 NFL teams will choose some workers from their cities to attend the game.

“These dedicated health care workers continue to put their own lives at risk to serve others, and we owe them our ongoing gratitude,” Goodell said. “We hope in a small way that this initiative will inspire our country and recognize these true American heroes.”

There will also be what Goodell called “a variety of special moments” to honor health care workers in the stadium during the game and also on the television broadcast by CBS.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said the NFL’s decision is a perfect way to honor health care workers at such a high-profile event.

“Our country has endured to much over the last year and we can’t lose sight of those who worked day in and day out to keep us safe,” Castor said in the NFL release.

As with NFL games throughout the season, the Super Bowl will include mandatory wearing of masks, social distancing, touchless concession stands and controlled entry and exits. The NFL had about 1.2 million fans attend 116 games so far during the regular season and playoffs, Goodell said.

This Sunday’s two conference championships will determine which teams meet in the Super Bowl. Tampa Bay travels to face the Green Bay Packers in the NFC, while the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs host the Buffalo Bills in the AFC.

If Tampa Bay wins, the Buccaneers will be the first team ever to play in a Super Bowl on their home field.

 

— Associated Press

New daily cases are starting to slow in what some health experts see as a turning point. But they warn of a bumpy vaccination rollout amid the emergence of more contagious variants.

 

— NYT: Top Stories

Tim McGraw is speaking out about how he really felt when Taylor Swift named her debut single after him.

 

— FOX News

 

For the first time in more than a decade, Republicans are waking up to a Washington where Democrats control the White House and Congress, adjusting to an era of diminished power, deep uncertainty and internal feuding.

The shift to minority status is always difficult, prompting debates over who is to blame for losing the last election. But the process is especially intense as Republicans confront profound questions about what the party stands for without Donald Trump in charge.

Over the last four years, the GOP’s values were inexorably tied to the whims of a president who regularly undermined democratic institutions and traded the party’s longstanding commitment to fiscal discipline, strong foreign policy and the rule of law for a brash and inconsistent populism. The party now faces a decision about whether to keep moving in that direction, as many of Trump’s most loyal supporters demand, or chart a new course.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, one of the few Republican elected officials who regularly condemned Trumpism, evoked President Ronald Reagan in calling this moment “a time for choosing.”

“We have to decide if we’re going to continue heading down the direction of Donald Trump or if we’re going to return to our roots,” Hogan, a potential 2024 White House contender, said in an interview.

“The party would be much better off if they were to purge themselves of Donald Trump,” he added. “But I don’t think there’s any hope of him completely going away.”

Whether the party moves on may come down to what Republicans like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz do next.

Cruz spent weeks parroting Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, which helped incite the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol. Republican elections officials in several battleground states that President Joe Biden carried have said the election was fair. Trump’s claims were roundly rejected in the courts, including by judges appointed by Trump.

Cruz acknowledged Biden’s victory on Wednesday, but he refused to describe it as legitimate when pressed.

“He won the election. He is the president. I just came from his inauguration,” Cruz said of Biden in an interview.

Looking forward, Cruz said Trump would remain a significant part of the political conversation, but that the Republican Party should move away from divisive “language and tone and rhetoric” that alienated suburban voters, particularly women, in recent elections.

“President Trump surely will continue to make his views known, and they’ll continue to have a real impact, but I think the country going forward wants policies that work, and I think as a party, we need to do a better job winning hearts and minds,” said Cruz, who is also eyeing a White House run.

In the wake of the Capitol riot, a small but notable faction of high-profile Republicans are taking a stronger stance against Trump or distancing themselves from him.

The Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, said on the eve of the inauguration that the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol was “provoked by the president.” Even Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president and long considered his most devoted cheerleader, skipped Trump’s departure ceremony to attend Biden’s inauguration.

Trump retreated Wednesday to his south Florida estate, where he has retained a small group of former White House aides who will work out of a two-story guest house on the Mar-a-Lago grounds. In addition to advisers in Washington, Trump will have access to a well-funded political action committee, the Save America PAC, that is likely to inherit tens of millions of dollars in donations that flooded his campaign coffers after his election loss.

Those close to Trump believe he will lay low in the immediate future as he focuses on his upcoming impeachment trial for inciting the riot. After that, he is expected to reemerge, likely granting media interviews and finding a new home on social media after losing his powerful Twitter bullhorn.

While his plans are just taking shape, Trump is expected to remain politically active, including trying to exact revenge by backing primary challenges against Republicans he believed scorned him in his final days. He continues to leave the door open to another presidential run in 2024. Some friends believe he might even flirt with running as a third-party candidate, which would badly splinter an already fractured GOP.

Trump issued an ominous vow as he left the White House for the last time as president: “We will be back in some form.”

Many in the GOP’s die-hard base continue to promote conspiracy theories, embrace white nationalism and, above all, revere Trump’s voice as gospel.

Trump loyalists in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wyoming expressed outrage and disappointment in the 10 Republicans who voted with Democrats to impeach Trump last week. One of them, Michigan Rep. Pete Meijer, said he bought body armor to protect himself from a wave of threats from Trump supporters.

In Montana, state GOP Chairman Frank Eathorne raised the possibility of secession this week and criticized Rep. Liz Cheney, another Republican who backed Trump’s impeachment, pledging continued loyalty to Trump.

“The Republican National Committee views President Trump as our party leader into the future… The (state party) agrees,” Eathorne said, noting that Trump “represents the timeless principles” that the state and national GOP stand for.

Trump left office with a 34% approval rating, according to Gallup — the lowest of his presidency — but the overwhelming majority of Republicans, 82%, approved of his job performance. Even as some try to move on, Trump’s continued popularity with the GOP’s base ensures he will remain a political force.

Despite the GOP’s many challenges, they’re within reach of retaking one or both chambers of Congress in next year’s midterm elections. Since the 2006 midterms, the party in the White House has lost on average 37 House seats. Currently, Democrats hold a 10-seat House majority and they’re tied with Republicans in the Senate.

Hogan, the Maryland governor, said that the GOP may be at one of its lowest points ever, but noted that Reagan reclaimed the White House for Republicans just six years after President Richard Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace.

“Obviously, (Trump) still has got a lock on a pretty good chunk of the Republican base, but there are an awful lot of people that were afraid to speak out for four years — unlike me —who are now starting to speak out,” Hogan said.

Still, there are plenty of hurdles ahead. Primary challenges could leave the party with congressional nominees next year who are even further to the right, potentially imperiling the GOP’s grip on races they might otherwise win.

More immediately, Senate Republicans, including McConnell, are wrestling with whether to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors as outlined in last week’s House impeachment. The Senate could ultimately vote to ban Trump from ever holding office again.

“I hope that Republicans won’t participate in this petty, vindictive, final attack directed at President Trump,” Cruz said. “We should just move on.”

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Meade Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, contributed to this report.

 

— Associated Press