Category: For Edit

 

BERLIN (AP) — German news agency dpa is reporting that illusionist Siegfried Fischbacher, the surviving member of the duo Siegfried & Roy, has died in Las Vegas at age 81.

The news agency said Thursday that Fischbacher’s sister, a nun who lives in Munich, confirmed his death of cancer.

“He was at home in Las Vegas,” Sister Dolore told dpa. She said she talked to her brother on the phone before he died and they prayed together.

“I could pray with him and tell him that I will always be with him in my heart,” she said.

After the call, he lay down and fell asleep, she added.

Fischbacher’s long-time show business partner, Roy Horn, died last year of complications from COVID-19 at a Las Vegas hospital. He was 75.

The duo astonished millions with their extraordinary magic tricks until Horn was critically injured in 2003 by one of the act’s famed white tigers.

In a statement announcing Horn’s death in May, Fischbacher said, “From the moment we met, I knew Roy and I, together, would change the world. There could be no Siegfried without Roy, and no Roy without Siegfried.”

He later told Germany’s weekly Bild am Sonntag newspaper his best friend would always stay by his side.

“For dinner, I will continue to have the table set for him, too. like it always was the case. I’m not alone,” dpa quoted Fischbacher as telling the newspaper.

For years, Siegfried & Roy was an institution in Las Vegas, where Fischbacher and Horn’s magic and artistry consistently attracted sellout crowds. The pair performed six shows a week, 44 weeks per year.

Horn and Fischbacher, both natives of Germany, first teamed up in 1957 and made their Las Vegas debut a decade later. Siegfried & Roy began performing at the Mirage in 1990.

The pair gained international recognition for helping to save rare white tigers and white lions from extinction. Their $10 million compound was home to dozens of rare animals over the years. The white lions and white tigers were the result of a preservation program that began in the 1980s.

The Siegfried & Roy show incorporated animal antics and magic tricks, featuring 20 white tigers and lions, the number varying depending on the night. The show also had other exotic animals, including an elephant.

Born on June 13, 1939 in Rosenheim in Bavaria, Fischbacher learned his first magic tricks as a young boy, dpa reported.

Horn and Fischbacher met on a cruise ship in 1957. Fischbacher performed the magic tricks, while Horn became his assistant, eventually suggesting using the cheetah in the act.

They honed their animal-magic show in small clubs in Germany and Switzerland in the mid-1960s. Their break came in a Monte Carlo casino when an agent in the audience invited them to Las Vegas. The pair made their debut at the Tropicana hotel-casino in the late 1960s.

The illusionists became popular in the 1970s, receiving their first star billing in 1978 as headliners of the Stardust’s “Lido de Paris.” Their show “Beyond Belief” opened in 1981 at the Frontier and played to thousands over seven years.

When they signed a lifetime contract with the Mirage in 2001, it was estimated they had performed 5,000 shows at the casino for 10 million fans since 1990 and had grossed more than $1 billion.

“Throughout the history of Las Vegas, no artists have meant more to the development of Las Vegas’ global reputation as the entertainment capital of the world than Siegfried and Roy,” Terry Lanni, chairman of MGM Mirage, the casino’s parent company, said after the 2003 attack that injured Horn.

 

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— Associated Press

He attested that President Trump would be the “healthiest president ever,” but he was later expelled from his orbit.

 

— NYT: Top Stories

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Now that President Donald Trump has been impeached by the House of Representatives a second time, keeping him from holding office again could be Congress’ next step.

Every House Democrat and 10 Republicans voted Wednesday to impeach Trump for his role in inciting last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. … There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the House’s No. 3 House GOP leader, wrote in a statement announcing that she would vote for impeachment.

On the Senate side, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said privately he’s through with Trump.

But impeachment alone won’t prevent Trump from seeking office in the future. Some questions and answers about how Congress might bar Trump from ever seeking federal office again.

WHAT EXACTLY DOES IMPEACHMENT DO?

Impeachment in the House sets up a trial in the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required to remove the president from office. Trump has been at this point before, of course. After the House impeached him in late 2019 for his pressure campaign on Ukraine, the Senate voted to acquit. Only one Republican, Mitt Romney of Utah, broke with the GOP.

This time, however, could prove different. McConnell himself said Wednesday he is undecided. Other Republicans are angry, and Trump would presumably be out of office before any vote is taken on whether to convict him. President-elect Joe Biden gets sworn in Jan. 20. With the Senate split 50-50, Democrats and the two independents who caucus with them would need 17 Republicans to join them to convict Trump.

IS TRUMP AUTOMATICALLY BARRED FROM OFFICE IF HE’S CONVICTED?

No, if past is precedent. If the Senate were to convict, lawmakers would take a separate vote on whether to disqualify him from holding future office.

No president has ever been convicted in the Senate and removed from office. But in the case of federal judges who were impeached and removed from office, the Senate has taken a second vote after conviction to determine whether to bar the person from ever holding federal office again.

The bar is lower on that second vote, with only a majority of senators needed to succeed. Then again, because it’s never happened before in the case of a president, a court challenge could follow. Frank Bowman III, a University of Missouri law professor and author of “A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump,” said it’s his view the lower number of votes makes sense, but it’s not crazy to think that it might be challenged if things got to that point.

Another legal issue: It appears that Trump’s Senate trial will not even start before Jan. 19, a day before he leaves office. Scholars disagree about whether a former president can even face an impeachment trial in the Senate.

IS THAT THE ONLY WAY TRUMP CAN BE BARRED FROM OFFICE?

Maybe not. In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Monday, Yale Law School professor Bruce Ackerman and Indiana University law professor Gerard Magliocca argued that members of Congress have another, perhaps easier, path to barring Trump from office.

They pointed to the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, aimed at preventing people from holding federal office if they are deemed to have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution.

The professors write that if a majority vote of both houses agree that Trump engaged in an act of “insurrection or rebellion,” then he would be barred from running for the White House again. Only a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress in the future could undo that result.

The sole article of impeachment adopted Wednesday cites that provision of the Constitution and says Trump should be disqualified from holding future office.

WHAT’S SECTION 3 DOING IN THE 14TH AMENDMENT?

The 14th Amendment was one of three amendments adopted after the Civil War to end slavery and afford equal rights to Black people. The point of Section 3, according to Ackerman and Magliocca, was to keep Confederates — those who had engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” — from holding public office in the postwar period. In 1872, Congress passed the Amnesty Act to allow those men to serve again. But Section 3 remains. It was last used a century ago to keep a socialist from Wisconsin who opposed U.S. entry into World War I from taking his seat in Congress.

 

— Associated Press

With only a week left in his term, the House impeached President Trump, but he will leave office before he stands trial in the Senate.

— NYT: Top Stories

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government’s deficit in the first three months of the budget year was a record-breaking $572.9 billion, 60.7% higher than the same period a year ago, as spending to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic pushed outlays up while revenue declined.

The Treasury Department reported Wednesday that with three months gone in the budget year, the deficit was $216.3 billion higher than the same October-December period a year ago.

The deficit, the shortfall between what the government collects in taxes and what it spends, reflects an 18.3% jump in outlays to $1.38 trillion, a record for the period, while revenues fell 0.4% to $803.37 billion. The deficit is the difference between revenue collections and outlays.

For just the month of December, the deficit totaled a record $143.6 billion.

The deficit for the 2020 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, climbed to an all-time high of $3.1 trillion. Beginning in the spring, Congress passed trillion-dollar-plus spending measures to combat the harm being done to the economy from a pandemic-induced downturn.

The recession, which has seen millions of Americans lose their jobs, has also meant a drop in tax revenues at a time when the demand on government support programs such as unemployment benefits and food stamps has risen.

 

— Associated Press

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House impeachment debate on Wednesday heard a distorted account of President Donald Trump’s remarks to his supporters a week ago when he exhorted them to “fight like hell” before they swarmed the Capitol.

REP. GUY RESCHENTHALER, R-Pa.: “At his rally, President Trump urged attendees to, quote, unquote, peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. There was no mention of violence, let alone calls to action.”

THE FACTS: Trump’s speech was a call to action — a call to fight and save the country.

“Our country has had enough,” he told those who went on to stage the violent siege of the Capitol.

“We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal.”

Reschenthaler accurately quoted a line from Trump, when the president told supporters “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

But throughout his remarks, Trump spoke of the need to “fight,” to be angry, to stop President-elect Joe Biden from taking office.

— “We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

— “We want to go back, and we want to get this right because we’re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there and our country will be destroyed, and we’re not going to stand for that.”

— “Nobody knows what the hell is going on. There’s never been anything like this. We will not let them silence your voices. We’re not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen.” The crowd repeatedly chanted “Fight for Trump!” “Thank you,” Trump said.

He assailed “weak,” “pathetic” Republicans who were not standing with him in his push to overturn the election results, and said “there’d be hell all over the country” if Democrats had been robbed of an election win.

“But just remember this,” he went on. “You’re stronger, you’re smarter. You’ve got more going than anybody, and they try and demean everybody having to do with us, and you’re the real people. You’re the people that built this nation. You’re not the people that tore down our nation.”

—”We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we’ve been forced to believe over the past several weeks.”

He told his refuted stories of “ballot harvesting” and thousands of dead people voting.

—”And we got to get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren’t any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world, we got to get rid of them. We got to get rid of them.”

He perhaps meant challenging Republicans like Rep. Cheney of Wyoming in primaries, telling the crowd “in a year from now, you’re going to start working on Congress.” But he did not say exactly what he meant by getting rid of people.

“So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” he concluded after more than an hour.

He didn’t walk, but they did, bearing Trump flags, overwhelming police and occupying the Capitol in an hours-long melee that left five people dead and exposed Trump to the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures.

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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apnews.com/APFactCheck

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

— Associated Press

 

More Americans are now eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccine but they may still face a wait for their first shot even as supplies increase.

Drugstore pharmacists are now doling out the shots in many states, and sports arenas and fairgrounds are planning big clinics. This latest push is focused for now on people deemed most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

The government this week announced it will no longer hold back the required second doses of vaccines, boosting supplies for first shots.

A closer look:

WHEN IS MY TURN?

It all depends on your age, your health and where you work or live. States ultimately determine the order in which people qualify for the vaccine, although the federal government is offering guidance.

First up: Front-line health care workers and nursing home residents, who started receiving shots last month. States are now expanding to other categories to include others deemed at high risk from COVID-19, like people age 75 and older, firefighters and teachers.

This week, federal health officials urged states to speed things up even more and lower the threshold to age 65 and up. Florida and Georgia and Washington, D.C., had already started doing this.

Federal officials also suggested including people under 65 who have certain health problems that make them more vulnerable if they get sick.

The vaccine is likely months away for most younger people. The two vaccines available in the U.S. haven’t been authorized for children.

WHERE CAN I GET THE VACCINE?

The options are expanding and vary depending on where you live.

Pharmacies are already doling out vaccines to eligible customers in states like Alaska, California, Florida, New Jersey and Texas. That list will grow and it will include grocers and retailers like Walmart that have pharmacies, aside from just drugstores like CVS or Walgreens.

Football stadiums, major league ballparks and fairgrounds are being turned into vaccination sites around the country so health officials can ramp up shots while allowing people to maintain social distance.

A vaccination site opened Wednesday at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which was used as a field hospital after the coronavirus pandemic first struck last spring.

Check with your state or local health department for information on open sites near you. T he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ’s website offers links to state health departments and their vaccination plans.

Some states like Arizona, California and Virginia have allowed counties to determine who is eligible to receive the vaccine next, said Jennifer Tolbert of the non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation.

WILL I NEED AN APPOINTMENT?

Yes. At least initially, sites will require people to sign up ahead of time and verify that they are eligible for a shot.

Appointments can usually be scheduled online and also by phone. But expect some delays in signing up and finding a free slot.

The registration system in Washington, D.C., was quickly overwhelmed after the city opened up vaccines to residents 65 and older on Monday. People reported problems with the website and hours-long waits to register by phone.

WILL I WAIT IN LINE?

You may have to sit in your car or stand in line depending on where you get the vaccine. But appointments are designed to minimize those waits and allow people to maintain a safe social distance while in line.

Georgia pharmacist Jonathan Marquess said Tuesday that he has given out about 1,000 shots so far, and his customers haven’t had to wait long. The independent drugstore owner said he’s spaced appointments 10 minutes apart to avoid lines and keep people apart.

“Be patient, we will get to you,” he said.

HOW WILL THE VACCINATIONS WORK?

The process is fairly simple, like getting a flu shot. People may have to show their identification or verify their eligibility before they get jabbed in the arm. Shots will be recorded in state and local vaccine registries.

Those with a history of severe allergic reactions may be asked to wait 30 minutes after the shot before leaving, while most others will only have to wait 15 minutes. This will be required even for people who use drive-through clinics.

Pharmacists and nurses are trained to handle the rare allergic reactions that can occur, said Kathleen Jaeger, an executive with the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.

“This is not new to the COVID vaccine,” she said, noting that some sort of waiting period is recommended for all vaccines.

There are two vaccines available in the U.S. made by Pfizer and Moderna. Both require two doses three or four weeks apart for full coverage. Recipients can expect to receive a card and phone or email reminders to return for their second shot of the same vaccine.

WHAT’S THE COST?

It should be free. The government is paying for the vaccine itself. And you shouldn’t be charged a copay or other fee to get it.

The cost for giving the shot will be covered by private and government insurance. If you don’t have insurance, providers can tap a government fund to cover costs.

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AP Reporter Candice Choi contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

— Associated Press

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the fallout from the attack of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump loyalists (all times local):

10:05 a.m.

Democratic lawmakers have opened the historic impeachment effort in the House by saying that every moment Donald Trump is in the White House the nation is in danger.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., says the debate is taking place at an “actual crime scene and we wouldn’t be here if it were not for the president of the United States.”

The House is considering impeaching Trump for the second time after last week’s riots at the Capitol as lawmakers met to certify the election results. McGovern says it was Trump and his allies who were stoking the anger of the violent mob.

He says Trump told the crowd to march to the Capitol and “the signal was unmistakable.”

Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma said Jan. 6th would live in his memory as the darkest day of his service in the House. But Cole says the Senate could not even begin to consider impeachment until after President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in.

He says he can think of no action the House can take that would further divide the American people than the actions being taken Wednesday. He says “it’s unfortunate that a path to support healing is not the path the majority has chosen today.”

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HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE FALLOUT FROM THE RIOTING AT THE CAPITOL:

The U.S. House plans the unprecedented vote Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time. The move comes one week after he encouraged a mob of loyalists to “fight like hell” against election results and the U.S. Capitol became the target of a deadly siege.

Read more:

— House on verge of 2nd impeachment of Trump

—FBI says it warned of prospect of violence ahead of riots

—Trump’s GOP wall erodes ahead of impeachment vote

—Safest place in Washington no more: A reporter’s disbelief

 

HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON:

9:50 a.m.

As the House opens its impeachment hearing, the District of Columbia National Guard says it has been authorized to arm troops assigned to security duty on the U.S. Capitol grounds.

The Guard said in a statement that the authority was requested by federal authorities and approved by Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy as of approximately 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Up to 15,000 Guard members are expected to be on duty in coming days in the district to support law enforcement in connection with the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. Authorities are concerned about threats of violence, following the insurrection at the Capitol last week.

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9:25 a.m.

The House has opened its proceedings Wednesday, poised to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time exactly a week after his supporters stormed the Capitol to protest his election defeat.

At least five Republicans have said they will join Democrats in voting to remove Trump from office. The article of impeachment charges the president with “incitement of insurrection.”

The House chaplain opened the session with a prayer for “seizing the scales of justice from the jaws of mob-ocracy.”

A vote is expected by the end of the day.

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8:15 a.m.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger is predicting more Republicans will join him in voting to impeach President Donald Trump.

The House is set to vote Wednesday afternoon on impeaching Trump for a second time, accusing him of rallying a violent mob of supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol last week. If that isn’t an impeachable offense, Kinzinger said, “I don’t know what is.”

Several other Republicans are backing impeachment, including No. 3 GOP leader Liz Cheney.

“This is one of these moments that transcends politics,” the Illinois lawmaker told “CBS This Morning” in an interview ahead of the vote.

Besides Kinzinger and Cheney, other Republicans backing impeachment are John Katko of New York, Fred Upton of Michigan and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington.

Kinzinger wouldn’t say how many more GOP lawmakers might vote to impeach, but said, “there’ll be more than the five you’ve seen so far.”

 

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— Associated Press

 

Republicans offered only modest reproach when President Donald Trump said there were “very fine people” on both sides of a white supremacist rally. They stayed in line when Trump was caught pressuring a foreign leader and later defended his handling of a deadly pandemic.

But with a sudden force, the wall of Republican support that has enabled Trump to weather a seemingly endless series of crises is beginning to erode.

Trump’s weakened standing among his own party will come into sharper focus on Wednesday when the House is expected to impeach the president for inciting a riot at the U.S. Capitol last week. A handful of Republicans have already said they’ll join the effort, a number that could grow as the vote nears.

The choice facing Republicans isn’t just about the immediate fate of Trump, who has just seven days left in his presidency. It’s about whether the party’s elected leaders are ready to move on from Trump, who remains popular with many GOP voters but is now toxic in much of Washington.

How they proceed could determine whether the party remains viable in upcoming elections or splinters in a way that could limit their relevance.

“We’re at the moment now where we’re seeing a fracturing, a breaking, because of the unprecedented situation — the sedition, the violence, the death,” said Steve Schmidt, a longtime Republican strategist who left the party because of Trump.

The stunning nature of the deadly insurrection — and Trump’s role in fueling it — has shaken many lawmakers. Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, gave rank-and-file conservatives the green light to abandon Trump in a scathing statement Tuesday evening.

“There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” she charged.

More ominously for Trump, The New York Times reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thinks Trump committed an impeachable offense and is glad Democrats are moving against him.

Citing unidentified people familiar with the influential Kentucky Republican’s thinking, the Times reported McConnell believes moving against Trump will help the GOP forge a future independent of the divisive, chaotic president.

While stunning, the fast-moving developments do not ensure Trump will be forced from office before Democrat Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration. The timing of a Senate trial is unclear and could spill into Biden’s presidency.

But for the first time, there are real signs that a significant faction of Republicans want to purge Trump from their party.

Already, three Trump Cabinet members have resigned in protest. Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who left the White House less than a month ago, accused his former boss of a “betrayal of his office.”

It took almost a week for Vice President Mike Pence, whose relationship with Trump has soured considerably since he and his family were forced into hiding during the Capitol siege, to publicly declare he would not invoke the 25th Amendment of the Constitution to remove Trump from office.

Despite the defections, Trump remains popular with a significant portion of his political base. The president’s remaining allies warn that Republicans who cross him publicly risk a conservative backlash in their next elections.

“Public and private polling shows Republican grassroots voters strongly oppose impeachment,” said Jason Miller, a Trump senior adviser. “Any Republican senator or congressman voting for impeachment will be held accountable in their next primary election.”

Trump emerged from his White House fortress for the first time since the riots for a trip to the wall his administration built along the Texas border. As he left Washington, he was careful to insist “we want no violence,” but denied any responsibility for the insurrection.

Once he reached the border, his remarks to a small crowd were fairly muted. In the end, he spoke for just 21 minutes and spent less than 45 minutes on the ground in what was expected to be the final trip of his presidency.

Before leaving, he offered an ominous warning to Democrats leading the charge to remove him from office: “Be careful what you wish for.”

That veiled threat came as the nation — and members of Congress — braced for the potential of more violence ahead of Biden’s inauguration. The FBI warned this week of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington.

Capitol security officials made the extraordinary decision to require members of Congress to pass through metal detectors to enter the House chamber beginning on Tuesday, although some Republicans resisted the new rule.

It’s unclear whether the chaos in Washington represents an existential threat to the party, but it almost certainly threatens to undermine the GOP’s short-term political goals.

Several major corporations, many of them reliably Republican donors, have promised to stop sending political donations to any of the 147 Republicans who perpetuated Trump’s false claims of election fraud by voting to reject Biden’s victory last week.

The fundraising challenge comes at a bad time for the GOP. History suggests that the Republican Party, as the minority party in Washington, should regain control of the House or Senate in 2022.

At the same time, a collection of ambitious Republicans are trying to position themselves to run for the White House in 2024. They are also contending with Trump’s legacy.

One of them, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, reminded reporters on Tuesday that he’s condemned the Trump presidency from the very beginning.

“I’ve been in the same place I’ve been for the whole four years. A lot of people have just changed their position,” Hogan said, while vowing not to leave the GOP. “I don’t want to leave the party and let these people who did a hostile takeover four years ago take over.”

Despite Hogan’s confidence, he is far less popular among Trump’s loyal base — a group likely to hold great sway in the selection of the party’s next presidential nominee — than the likes of Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, two other 2024 prospects who voted to reject Biden’s victory last week, even after the uprising.

“Republican leaders do not know how to move forward,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz said. “Everybody’s afraid that Donald Trump will tell people to come after them, but they also realize they’re losing the center of America. They’re trapped.”

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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Alamo, Texas, and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

 

— Associated Press