In first post-election TV interview, Trump renews baseless claims of voter fraud
InternationalNov 30. 2020President Donald Trump arrives to speak in the press briefing room at the White House on Nov. 24. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford
By The Washington Post · Felicia Sonmez · NATIONAL, POLITICS, WHITEHOUSE, MEDIA
In his first television interview since the Nov. 3 election, President Donald Trump suggested Sunday that he will never accept his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and continued to fling baseless accusations of election fraud.
“My mind will not change in six months,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo by telephone on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “There was tremendous cheating here.”
Biden won the presidential race with 306 electoral votes – the same number as Trump had four years ago in what he and his aides described as a landslide at the time.
Biden’s victory was further solidified Sunday as the Wisconsin recount confirmed that he had bested Trump in the key swing state by more than 20,000 votes. The president and his legal team also have failed in court challenge after court challenge as they have sought to overturn the results in various states.
In the Sunday interview, Trump said he is “going to use 125 percent of my energy” to continue to contest the results through the courts and signaled that he would be open to having a special counsel investigate the election. Any such appointment would be made by Attorney General William Barr.
Trump also voiced disbelief that Biden won more than 80 million votes, by far the most received by a presidential nominee. Barack Obama won in 2008 with nearly 70 million votes, a record that he didn’t beat in 2012, when he garnered just under 66 million votes. Four years later, Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton also didn’t surpass Obama’s 2008 total, winning 63 million and 66 million votes, respectively.
“Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes,” Trump declared Sunday, providing no evidence for his assertion. He claimed that some foreign leaders have been calling and telling him that this was the most “messed-up” election they have ever seen, although he did not name any of the leaders. The White House has not released the details of any such calls, and most U.S. allies have congratulated Biden on his win. Bartiromo did not dispute any of Trump’s false claims.
Ahead of the Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections in Georgia – which will determine which party controls the chamber – Trump also renewed his criticism of Republican officials in the state, including Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, for not supporting his baseless fraud claims.
“The governor’s done nothing. He has done absolutely nothing. I’m ashamed that I endorsed him,” Trump said of Kemp. Republicans are aiming to turn out GOP voters to lift Sens. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., and David Perdue, R-Ga., to victory in a state that Biden won this month, but those efforts could be made harder by the president’s persistent claims that voters should not trust that their votes will be counted.
Some cities are curtailing K-9 use after these brutal police dog attacks were captured on video
InternationalNov 30. 2020Robert Fitts screams as a K-9 attacks him after he was pulled over by police for a traffic violation in Selma, Ala., on Aug. 3, 2018. MUST CREDIT: Selma Police Department
By The Washington Post · Kimberly Kindy, Julie Tate · NATIONAL, COURTSLAW, ANIMALS
A half-mile from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where police once beat civil rights protesters, Selma police pulled over an unarmed 36-year-old Black man in 2018 for a series of traffic violations that began with him rolling his white Jaguar through a stop sign.
Robert Fitts got out of the car, arms raised, eyewitnesses said, but was quickly knocked to the ground and swarmed by three White officers as a fourth White officer led a lurching police dog to his body and ordered an attack. A Black officer arrived at that moment, yelling obscenities as he demanded that the dog be pulled away. Instead, he watched Fitts scream and writhe on the ground as the dog sunk his teeth deep into his leg.
“Get the dog back! Get the godd— dog back!” Selma Police Officer Robert Tyus shouted, as the other officers ignored his pleas and the German shepherd continued to bite and shake Fitts’s left leg for nearly 30 seconds.
The incident is one of at least 37 video-recorded K-9 attacks that have surfaced over the past three years across the country, many showing people under attack even though they are unarmed, have surrendered to police, are already handcuffed or are innocent bystanders, a Washington Post analysis shows.
Similar to the way that footage of chokeholds and fatal shootings has led to a reassessment of police tactics, video of attacking police dogs and the resulting physical injuries are beginning to alter the image of the controllable, lifesaving K-9, sometimes known as the Lassie or Rin Tin Tin effect. For decades this image has blunted the scrutiny of the roughly 15,000 police dogs now working in the United States, civil rights groups, policing experts and attorneys say.
In some cases, the officers themselves have been alarmed by how K-9s were used by fellow officers. But as Officer Tyus found in Selma, that can put them at odds with their department. Selma police said use of the dog was justified, but Tyus stood by his position in August at a bail hearing for Fitts. “I stated this is some bulls— because I felt like he could have been taken in custody without being bitten,” Tyus testified. Video of the attack on Fitts was obtained by The Post and has not been previously made public.
The image of police dogs started to shift several months ago in Salt Lake City. Video showed Jeffery Ryans, a 36-year-old Black man who was about to leave for his job as a train engineer, putting his hands in the air and kneeling on the ground in his backyard as he told officers he was surrendering. A German shepherd was unleashed on him anyway, chomping down on his left leg, causing injuries that required multiple surgeries in an attempt to repair nerve, muscle and tendon damage.
“I believe when people view videos like this they will feel disgusted, distressed, shocked and angered,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, a Democrat, said in an interview. “It will look antiquated, brutal and inappropriate in this day and age. These videos are a catalyst for change. I believe we are at a tipping point.”
The Salt Lake City officer – known as a K-9 handler – has been charged with felony aggravated assault. More than 100 videos from an additional 18 police dog attacks have been referred by the police department to the local district attorney for possible prosecution.
Key videos from those encounters, reviewed by The Post, show officers repeatedly siccing dogs on individuals after they had surrendered or were under the physical control of officers. Crucial details about those incidents, such as the race of those attacked, have not been made public – aside from the Ryans case – and were not always discernible from the videos.
Outside of the Salt Lake City incidents, The Post reviewed 18 other cases captured on video and documented in police reports and legal records across the country. In a majority of the cases, officers were cleared of any wrongdoing and the departments have announced no changes to their K-9 programs. In a few cases, the people who were bitten have received financial settlements through civil lawsuits. Only two of the people who were bitten were armed.
In at least half of the 18 cases, the victim was Black. Virtually all of the K-9 handlers – at least 16 of the 18 – were White.
In four cases, the people were in handcuffs when the K-9 attacked them. Another four were accidental bites of innocent bystanders who were walking their dog, sleeping in a tent or strolling down the sidewalk.
One of the innocent bystanders was 39-year-old Raymond Roberts, who is White, and was sleeping outside in a tent in Albuquerque when a police dog in pursuit of a suspect in an attempted homicide bit him instead. The attack took place in 2016 and the video became public in 2018. Roberts suffered multiple bites and tears to his left shoulder and arm that required several surgeries that did not fully restore the use, mobility or strength in his arm, medical records show. The city settled with Roberts last year for $390,000.
Charges are rare in K-9 cases, but a sheriff’s deputy in North Carolina pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor for siccing a dog on an unarmed Black man who was on the ground, surrounded by five other officers and experiencing a mental health crisis. The department put its K-9 officers and their 11 dogs through new training, and the number of bites has dropped from an annual average of eight to zero the past two years.
In Graton, Calif., Jason Anglero-Wyrick, 36, was mauled in April by a K-9 as he lay face down, his hands wrapped behind his back in an act of surrender, video shows. The officer was unable to get the dog to release its grip on command, and as the dog was being pulled off Anglero-Wyrick, it ripped a hunk of flesh from his right leg the size of a baseball, leading to a three-week hospital stay and multiple surgeries, records show.
The mauling left him disfigured, and months of physical therapy has not helped him regain the full use of his leg. He was suspected of assaulting a neighbor and threatening them with a gun, but the charges were later dropped.
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department, which has eight dogs and K-9 handlers, said the use of the police dog was justified. In a statement, the department said it attempted to “safely detain” Anglero-Wyrick but that he refused to obey their commands, so the dog, named Vader, was used to force Anglero-Wyrick to comply.
Anglero-Wyrick said in an interview that he thought he was going to die.
“I could tell if I moved while the dog was on me, they were going to shoot me. So I allowed the dog to keep eating me the whole time,” he said. “They sadistically watched the dog eat my leg and kept saying ‘Good dog. Good dog.’ They ruined my life.”
Juanita Fitts, mother of Robert Fitts, in Selma, Ala. Her son had been knocked to the ground and was surrounded by police when a K-9 attack was ordered by the dog’s handler. MUST CREDIT: Photo for The Washington Post by Cameron Carnes
Richard Polsky, who holds a doctorate in animal behavior and has served as an expert witness in K-9 court cases, said the dogs are referred to as “officers” but do not have the ability to make judgment calls like their human counterparts. They often bite without releasing, even after repeated orders to do so, and sometimes bite the wrong person.
Their handlers, he said, often cannot manage them.
“These dogs are already genetically programmed for aggression, and then they put them through attack training,” Polsky said. “They can’t be controlled.”
Charlie Mesloh, a former K-9 handler and professor at Northern Michigan University, said this lack of control is evident in the types of tools now sold to K-9 officers, including a “breaker bar” that Mesloh said officers use on “the low-down.”
The metal bar is slipped between the dog’s teeth by the K-9 handler, one supply company says on its website, because “many dogs will refuse to ‘out’ off the suspect,” meaning they will not release.
“In this day and age when everything is videotaped and uploaded to social media, the noncompliance of the dog to release on command can cause problems in the courtroom and with administration,” the advertising pitch continues.
Mesloh said if this tool is needed, it means the police dog is poorly trained and “should have never become a K-9 in the first place.”
The force of a K-9 bite can be as much as 1,500 pounds per square inch – three times as powerful as the jaws of an untrained dog of similar size, experts say. German shepherds and Belgian Malinois are the most common K-9 breeds, weighing 70 to 90 pounds. They are trained to bite with a full mouth, using all of their teeth.
An estimated 40,000 people were treated for K-9 attacks in hospital emergency rooms from 2009 to 2018, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Although deaths are rare, the nonprofit Marshall Project journalism group found at least three people had died of injuries from police dog bites since 2011.
K-9 trainers and handlers dispute the characterization of the out-of-control police dog or of officers misusing them. They say the dogs can save the lives of both suspects and officers. Suspects sometimes hide, hoping to evade or ambush officers, and dogs are able to sniff them out. Also, K-9 handlers say dogs can subdue fleeing suspects who might otherwise be shot.
Don Slavik, executive director of the United States Police Canine Association, said the public typically sees video footage of K-9 attacks from a single camera angle – sometimes a video taken by a bystander or a police-worn body camera – that focuses on the moment of the dog bite. This can warp the reality of what took place, he said. Other videos from different angles can paint a clearer picture but are not always available.
“There are some things that really look bad on the body-worn cameras, but you don’t always know what all the evidence is when a video is released,” said Slavik.
Some psychologists say the premise behind the use of police dogs – to subdue and get a suspect to become motionless – is faulty at its core.
Humans are hard-wired to actively fight an attack that might lead to serious injuries or death. Many Black suspects also have frightening personal histories of ancestors being hunted by canines. Enslaved people who fled plantations were tracked down and mauled by dogs, sometimes to death, their bodies brought back as a warning to other enslaved people. K-9s were also routinely used in the 1960s on civil rights protesters.
Psychologists say such attacks typically affect our sympathetic nervous system, triggering a fight-or-flight response. This makes it difficult for someone who is being attacked by a dog to remain motionless as officers command them to do just that. It also makes it hard for them to hear police commands, because hearing can also be diminished while in this state.
“Our brains are responding and reacting instinctually. Our heart starts beating faster. Our blood pressure goes up,” said Roxanne Donovan, a psychology professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. “We get tunnel vision, honing in on the threat or perceived threat that we need to eliminate.”
Juanita Fitts points to body-cam footage of the 2018 K-9 attack on her son that is now at the center of a civil lawsuit against the department. MUST CREDIT: Photo for The Washington Post by Cameron Carnes
Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said he first learned about the K-9 attack on Jeffery Ryans the morning of Aug. 11 – four months after the April incident. He found out from a local newspaper, the Salt Lake Tribune.
“It was disheartening,” Brown said, adding that he keeps questioning how the K-9 program “got so far off base.” Brown immediately ordered a department audit of all video footage associated with K-9 bites, dating back to 2016.
There were 34 incidents with video footage. More than half were troublesome, including one involving a teenage boy who broke into a fast-food restaurant and was pulled off a countertop by an officer and slammed to the floor.
The officer pinned the teenager’s neck, chin and right shoulder to the floor as he repeatedly ordered the dog to attack. The boy screamed “I’m a 14-year-old … please, please, please!” as the dog bit and shook his leg for 15 seconds before the video abruptly ends. It unclear how long the attack went on.
This is one of the videos Brown referred to Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill to determine if additional criminal charges were warranted outside the Ryans case. Gill assigned two full-time prosecutors to review the videos and police reports associated with the incidents. Gill said he expects additional charges.
“Are there scenes where people have otherwise given up? Yes, we are seeing that,” Gill said in an interview. “Are there scenes that our team has observed that are of concern? Absolutely. And have they violated peoples’ rights in a violent and gratuitous way? Yes.”
The Salt Lake City K-9 program has been suspended and no decision has been made about whether it will resume. All five K-9 officers, the sergeant and the captain are on administrative leave. The Utah State Fraternal Order of Police is holding a fundraiser to help Salt Lake City K-9 officers with their legal bills.
Of special concern to the union is Gill’s most recent move to secure and review K-9 videos from other police departments within Salt Lake County. The union’s website features pictures of the Salt Lake City department’s K-9s with their handlers, with the faces of officers blurred. The site says the K-9 unit is “Sim Gill’s first target, but it won’t be his last.”
Brent Jax, president of the union, said using K-9s for apprehension is facing increased scrutiny nationwide.
“It’s a trend,” said Jax. “It is part of this anarchist movement to take tools away from the police. Next they will come after our tasers and batons until the only thing we have left is our hands and a gun.”
Jax said he believes the officer charged in the attack on Ryans, Nickolas Pearce, will win in court, referencing an oft-cited 1988 federal appeals court ruling -Robinette v. Barnes – that has prevented many prosecutors from filing charges in K-9 cases.
The case established that a K-9 attack used to “to seize a felony suspect does not constitute deadly force,” making it difficult to successfully prosecute officers on felony assault charges for the dog bites.
Those who have been attacked can face other legal obstacles. Six civil rights and trial attorneys interviewed by The Post said that police routinely offer K-9 bite victims plea deals. In exchange for a guilty plea for resisting arrest, police departments often drop other charges or reduce them from felonies to misdemeanors.
By admitting guilt in resisting officers or the K-9, it becomes nearly impossible for a civil lawsuit to be successful. It also makes it difficult for criminal charges to stick.
“In order to be found guilty of resisting arrest, one factual element that must be proved is that the officer was acting lawfully at the time of the event. Thus pleading guilty legally establishes that the officer was acting lawfully,” said attorney Izaak Schwaiger, who is representing the man attacked in the case in Graton.
Chiquita Sanders, an eyewitness to the arrest of Robert Fitts in Selma, Ala., looks toward the scene of the 2018 incident on Nov. 20. “I was hysterical,” she said. “When I saw the dog I started screaming, ‘Get the dog! Get the dog!’ ” MUST CREDIT: Photo for The Washington Post by Cameron Carnes
Chiquita Sanders, one of two eyewitnesses in the Selma case, was gazing out a window when she saw what she first thought was a funeral procession. It was Fitts, driving slowly in his Jaguar, as patrol cars trailed behind him. Then a compliant Fitts emerged from his car with his hands “completely in the air,” Sanders said.
The Selma Police Department – which has 64 officers, with five in the K-9 unit -describes a very different encounter with Fitts.
They say it began when Fitts failed to stop at an intersection in the public housing where he grew up and where his mother still lives. (His uncle, Reginald Fitts, who is a lieutenant with the department, declined interview requests.)
He was pulled over, and as a patrol officer approached him with his gun drawn, Fitts drove away at a “high rate of speed through residential housing,” running two red traffic signals. Rather than raising his hands in surrender, police say, Fitts attempted to flee on foot.
Sanders and police agree on what came next. A K-9 was led to Fitts and ordered to bite him.
From the window of the power company where she worked, Sanders said she panicked as she watched the scene unfold. “I was hysterical,” she said. “When I saw the dog I started screaming, ‘Get the dog! Get the dog!’ “
The video shows an officer had grasped Fitts’s right wrist and appeared to be applying handcuffs. However, as the dog was ordered to move in and bite Fitts, that officer withdrew, the video shows.
The dog, named Shorty, was only used because Fitts was resisting arrest, police said. They acknowledged that Tyus, the Black officer who arrived as the K-9 was ordered to bite Fitts, “attempted to get his fellow officers to pull the dog away,” court records show.
They also acknowledge that the officers disregarded Tyus’s pleas and said that the dog was removed once Fitts was “fully arrested.” Hospital records show Fitts had multiple bite and puncture marks on both legs, and sutures were needed to close a “deep wound on the right thigh.”
Fitts faces a felony charge of threatening a police officer and four misdemeanor charges, including resisting arrest, in a criminal case stemming from the incident. His trial is scheduled for Feb. 1.
The video from a body-worn police camera – leaked to Fitts’s family – is now the cornerstone of a civil lawsuit against the department, which notes the long history of police violence in the small Southern town.
In a text message exchange with The Post from jail in Alabama, Fitts said he “blanked out” during the attack even though, after viewing the video, he sees that he appears to be fully conscious as he thrashes about.
“I saw the video of me screaming,” he wrote, but said he was in so much pain “mentally I had checked out in my mind I couldn’t feel the attack.” He said he thought he was “gonna die.”
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Christopher Condon, Yueqi Yang · NATIONAL, HEALTH, HEALTH-NEWS
Members of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force fanned out across Sunday talk shows to promise a rapid rollout of coronavirus vaccines to millions of Americans by year-end.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said the federal government hopes to quickly review and approve requests from two drugmakers for emergency approval of their covid-19 vaccines.
While Adams said Pfizer Inc. “will be submitting” an Emergency Use Authorization request on Dec. 10 for the vaccine it developed with Germany’s BioNTech, Pfizer filed its EUA on Nov. 20, the first to seek such clearance. A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committee of outside experts will meet on Dec. 10 to review the Pfizer/BioNTech clinical trial data in public, which could precede rapid approval.
“We, from a federal perspective, have promised and set everything up so we can quickly review those EUAs and hopefully start sending out vaccines within 24 to 48 hours,” Adams said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Adams said he expects 40 million vaccine doses to be produced by the end of the year and for most Americans to have access to a vaccine by early in the second quarter of 2021.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” top U.S. infectious-diseases specialist Anthony Fauci said the government “almost certainly” will be vaccinating portions in the first priority of the population by the end of December.
“If we can hang together as a country and do these kinds of things to blunt these surges until we get a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated, we can get through this,” he said. “There really is light at the end of the tunnel.”
United Airlines Holdings Inc. began operating charter flights on Friday to position doses of Pfizer’s vaccine for quick distribution once approved, Dow Jones reported. A week ago, the chief executive officer of CVS Health Corp. said the pharmacy chain is ready to quickly vaccinate residents at thousands of long-term care facilities.
“It’s pretty much decided” that residents and staff of such care facilities, and health care workers in general, will be the first groups to get access to vaccines, former FDA administrator Scott Gottlieb said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“There’s about 20 million health care workers who might be eligible, and about three million residents of long-term care facilities and staff of those facilities. Those will be the first group of patients who get access to it,” he said.
In a separate interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Fauci said Covid jabs won’t be “centrally mandated” in U.S., but that some local officials or employers might apply pressure to get people vaccinated.
“Any individual group can mandate vaccines in certain ways,” he said. “Individual units, be they hospitals or other organizations, can do that. It’s within their right to say, if you want to work with us, you’re going to have to get a vaccine.”
Fauci said he has some concern about the overall anti-vaccination movement, but said the Covid jab research process has been “scientifically sound.”
“The process of determining whether it works, whether it’s safe and effective has been independent, by independent bodies, and transparent,” he said.
In his NBC interview, Fauci said he fears the virus’ spread will surge in the coming weeks into December. “We might see a surge superimposed upon the surge we’re already in,” he said. “I don’t want to frighten people, except to say it is not too late to do something about this.”
Adams also implored Americans to help stop the virus’ spread in the months remaining before a vaccine is widely available by wearing masks and avoiding gatherings.
“It’s going to get worse over the next several weeks,” Adams said, referring to the rates of infection, hospitalization and deaths resulting from the pandemic. “The actions we take over the next several days will determine how bad it’s going to get.”
Brett Giroir, assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, declined to recommend that all Americans who traveled or will travel during holidays quarantine afterward.
In an interview on CNN, Giroir said those who traveled should decrease unnecessary activities and quarantine only if they had close contact with someone known to have had covid-19.
By The Washington Post · Rosalind S. Helderman · NATIONAL, POLITICS
The recount of presidential ballots in Wisconsin’s two largest counties finished Sunday, reconfirming that President-elect Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the key swing state by more than 20,000 votes.
After Milwaukee County completed its tally Friday and Dane County concluded its count Sunday, there was little change in the final breakdown of the more than 800,000 ballots that had been cast in the two jurisdictions. As a result of the recount, Biden’s lead over Trump in Wisconsin grew by 87 votes.
Under Wisconsin law, Trump was required to foot the bill for the partial recount – meaning his campaign paid $3 million only to see Biden’s lead expand.
The results of the Wisconsin recount cemented Trump’s failure to alter the results of the November election in a series of states where he has falsely alleged there was widespread fraud and irregularities.
His efforts to stop Michigan officials from certifying the vote there earlier this month ran aground. A hand recount of ballots in Georgia confirmed Biden’s win in that state. Two new court decisions in Pennsylvania late last week rejected the Trump campaign’s attempts to halt the vote count there, the latest in a series of forceful judicial opinions that have tossed out claims by the president and his allies around the country.
On Monday, Arizona – the fifth of the six states where Trump has tried to upend the vote certification process – is set to finalize its results.
The Wisconsin Election Commission is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, at which time state law says the election results will be certified by the chairwoman of the six-member panel, who is a Democrat.
The president and his legal advisers have said they still plan to fight in court in an attempt to prevent Wisconsin from moving forward. The three Republicans on the state’s six-member election commission could seek to delay certification while the process unfolds.
“The Wisconsin recount is not about finding mistakes in the count, it is about finding people who have voted illegally, and that case will be brought after the recount is over, on Monday or Tuesday,” Trump wrote in a tweet Saturday. “We have found many illegal votes. Stay tuned!”
But even if the campaign were to pull out a surprise courtroom win – which legal experts said is unlikely – it would do little to change the outcome of the White House race, which Biden won with 306 electoral votes. The electoral college will meet on Dec. 14 to formalize his victory.
In Wisconsin, the president’s campaign sought to use the recount process to invalidate tens of thousands of otherwise legal ballots. Among other things, Trump’s lawyers argued that a form signed by voters who cast a ballot during in-person voting before Election Day was insufficient under state law. They said all those ballots – totaling about 180,000 votes in the two counties – should be tossed out.
They also complained about a practice in place since 2016 that allows election officials to fix tiny errors on the certification envelopes of some mail-in ballots, as well as rules in place since 2011 that allow some people to declare themselves “indefinitely confined” due to age or disability and vote without showing a photo ID.
Local officials in each county rejected the Trump campaign arguments and included the ballots in the recount.
Two conservative groups filed lawsuits last week asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to consider challenges to the recount process. The seven-member elected court has not yet said whether it will agree to hear the cases; Republicans have a 4-to-3 majority on the court. The Trump campaign is not so far a party to either suit.
Legal experts have said the arguments advanced by the Trump campaign during the recount were thin. They also said that even if judges were to conclude that some practices by Wisconsin clerks were technically flawed, they would be extremely unlikely to throw out tens of thousands of ballots cast by voters who did nothing wrong other than follow rules, as directed by election officials.
Further undermining the Trump campaign’s argument, experts said, is the fact that it raised only objections in two predominantly Democratic counties.
The practices that Trump lawyers criticized are in place statewide and have been in place for years, including before the 2016 election – which Trump won and did not contest.
Their arguments would not invalidate only Biden votes. Documents prepared as part of the Dane County recount showed that the Trump campaign’s own lead attorney in Wisconsin, James Troupis, had voted early and in person. He essentially argued that his own vote was illegal and should not be counted. Troupis did not respond to requests for comment.
“This whole strategy is so shortsighted. It’s so self-destructive in the long term,” said James Wigderson, a conservative activist and editor of the website RightWisconsin, who did not vote for Trump.
He argued the GOP gambit sent a strong message to voters of color that the Republican Party believes their votes are less valid than those cast in White suburbs and rural areas. “Republicans should be outraged by this,” he said.
In announcing Dane County’s results Sunday, clerk Scott McDonell noted that the recount had found no instances of fraud. He said the process should “reassure” the public about the accuracy of the count, but said he found it “disturbing” that the Trump campaign had targeted only two Democratic counties for practices in place across Wisconsin.
Under Wisconsin law, Trump was allowed to request the recount because Biden’s margin of victory – about 0.6 percent – was less than 1 percent. However, Trump’s campaign was required to pay for the recount because Biden’s margin was more than 0.25 percent. Trump could have requested a full statewide recount, at a cost of nearly $8 million. Instead, his campaign opted to pay less for a narrower recount in the state’s two most Democratic-leaning counties.
“This recount demonstrated what we already know: that elections in Milwaukee County are fair, transparent, accurate and secure,” County Clerk George Christenson said as the county election commission voted to certify its results Friday. “We have once again demonstrated good government in Wisconsin.”
The recounts required dozens of election employees to work for more than 12 hours a day since Nov. 20, taking off only Thanksgiving Day. Officials in both counties took over local convention centers to allow workers to spread out, erected Plexiglas shields, and instructed workers and observers alike to wear masks.
Still, election officials worried employees could have been exposed to the coronavirus while conducting a process they had asserted from the start was exceptionally unlikely to change the state’s results, given Biden’s margin of victory.
“I’m very concerned,” Christenson said in an interview.
He noted that there among the 300 people who gathered at a convention center each day for the recount was a poll worker who was pregnant. A member of the local elections commission, who had to be on site full time to adjudicate challenges raised by the Trump campaign, is 73 years old and has a heart condition, he said.
SANYA – China’s new deep-sea manned submersible Fendouzhe (Striver) returned to south China’s Hainan province on Saturday morning onboard the scientific research ship Tansuo-1, after completing its ocean expedition.
The ship Tansuo-1 berthed and anchored in Sanya at 8:30 am Saturday.
Fendouzhe set a national record by diving to a depth of 10,909 meters in the Mariana Trench at 8:12 am on Nov 10
Fendouzhe set a national record by diving to a depth of 10,909 meters in the Mariana Trench at 8:12 am on Nov 10.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday sent a letter to congratulate on the successful completion of the 10,000-meter sea trial of Fendouzhe and its return to port.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, extended warm congratulations and sincere greetings to scientific researchers who are committed to the deep-sea equipment development and scientific studies.
Xi said the development of manned submersible Fendouzhe and its sea trial represented China’s comprehensive strength in the field of marine high technology.
During the expedition which started on Oct 10, Fendouzhe successfully completed 13 dives, eight of which exceeded a depth of 10,000 meters.
The expedition team overcame difficulties such as typhoons, rain and high temperatures, conducted multiple tests and obtained a batch of sediment, rock and seabed biological samples, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
A joint operation of Fendouzhe and the deep-sea video lander “Canghai” was also carried out during the expedition.
The successful sea trial verified the various functions and performances of the submersible as well as China’s breakthroughs in deep-sea equipment and technologies
The successful sea trial verified the various functions and performances of the submersible as well as China’s breakthroughs in deep-sea equipment and technologies. It marked China’s entry into the first echelon of deep-sea scientific research and provided strong technical support for the country’s subsequent deep-sea research.
The development of home-made Fendouzhe, which began in 2016, has involved nearly 1,000 scientists and researchers from about 100 research institutions, colleges and enterprises. Fendouzhe adopts a safe and powerful energy system, an advanced control system, and a positioning system. Its cabin and buoyancy materials are more pressure-resistant compared with its predecessors.
In July 2010, China’s first self-developed deep-sea manned submersible, Jiaolong, reached 3,759 meters beneath the waves. It made China the fifth country, following the United States, France, Russia, and Japan, to have the technology for a submersible dive to more than 3,500 meters below sea level.
Designed to dive to a depth of 7,000 meters, Jiaolong set a diving record of 7,062 meters in the Mariana Trench in June 2012.
By The game was designed to bust myths and spread awareness related to COVID-19 while offering an immersive experience to the users.
At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives and livelihood of people at all strata of society, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today launched an innovation database to collate some 1,500 solutions developed by grass root communities, individuals, startups, students and other innovators across the country that can be implemented at the community level.
These innovative solutions, ranging from simple to complex in design, form part of Grassroot Innovation Database (GRID) that was launched by UNDP Accelerator Lab India to foster inclusive development.
The unique database caters to various sectors which include livelihood, natural resource management, agriculture, agrobiodiversity, pest management, water management, farm machinery, biodiversity conservation, augmentation, inclusive growth, waste management and circular economy.
GRID has been co-created for public use by GIAN (Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network), Honey Bee Network Institution and UNDP- Accelerator Lab-India.
It can be accessed at grid.undp.org.in The UNDP Accelerator Lab India was launched a year back to leverage technology to evaluate localised problems and address the solutions in partnership with local stakeholders, thus augmenting the success of SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) in the country.
The network taps into local innovations to create actionable insights and reimagine sustainable development for the 21st century.
The Accelerator labs globally try to address development challenges, especially Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) issues by scouting for local solutions and integrating the learnings through international network. In India, the UNDP Accelerator Lab has been engaged in ground-breaking work on developmental innovations.
From using Geospatial technology, Artificial Intelligence and Mobile technology to target hotspots of air pollution from space to leveraging Blockchain for agricultural value chains and IoT for water conservation in agriculture, there are many.
The Lab also conducted an innovation challenge in December 2019 to seek the best technological innovations towards air pollution mitigation in India.
Similarly, as part of its COVID-19 response strategy, the India Accelerator Lab designed and delivered an innovative game ~ Corona Champion ~ under pro-bono partnership with IPE Global.
The game was designed to bust myths and spread awareness related to COVID-19 while offering an immersive experience to the users.
“We believe that if an individual with little or no resources can solve an issue through strategic innovation, why cannot we, as an organisation with the necessary prowess, address it in a manner that helps to scale it up and take it to wider groups of communities,” the UNDP Accelerator Lab team said, speaking on the Grassroot Innovation Database launch.
“GrassRoot Innovation Database will encourage inclusive development, which has become all the more critical in the COVID era.”
The team stressed that during the time of COVID-19 there is need for innovation at all levels, from hi-tech to low level, involving various stakeholders.
“There is exponential growth of innovations during COVID and a lot of innovative platforms,” said Swetha Kolluri, Head of Experimentation, UNDP Accelerator Lab, India, at a webinar for media persons.
“People are trying new ways of conducting business.” At the macro level, said Rozita Singh, Head of Solutions Mapping, UNDP Accelerator Lab, India, GRID demonstrates to the policy makers that there is potential to learn from creative communities and individuals at the micro level, as this encompasses solutions that can be implemented on ground in real time, complemented by the fact that being tried and tested the cost of failure is minimal.
“GRID can also be leveraged for setting up distributed enterprises and for catering to the local or niche markets,” she added. On the Blockchain project for Indian spices, Krishnan Srinivasaraghavan, Head of Exploration, UNDP Accelerator Lab, India, said it was introduced after a lot of consultation, especially in the COVID scenario.
“We thought of increasing farmers’ income while boosting livelihood,” he added. Earlier, addressing a multi-stakeholder round table discussion on “Investments for Innovation”, Prof K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor, Union government, said, “The vulnerable section of the society needs to be provided with quality education, food, health facilities and an environment which has equal opportunities for all. Expertise from grass-root innovators can foster inclusivity in this form of development.”
Prof Anil Gupta, founder of GIAN, said, “Our objective is to give voice, visibility and velocity to the creative and innovative communities and improve their livelihood, conservation of biodiversity and associated knowledge system for inclusive development. Lot of practices in GRID are in DIY mode which can be used by people freely: the grid reaches the poorest with possibility of using knowledge about innovations for augmenting their well-being.”
S. Korea to launch presidential committee on carbon-neutral campaign, Moon says
InternationalNov 29. 2020President Moon Jae-in speaks at a meeting on South Korea’s aim of going carbon neutral by 2050 held at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on Friday. (Yonhap)
By Yonhap Korea Herald
President Moon Jae-in announced a plan Friday to establish a presidential body on South Korea’s stated goal of going carbon neutral by 2050 as part of a “strong pan-governmental system” to push for the vision.
He said the envisioned government-private organization, tentatively named the “2050 Carbon Neutrality Committee,” is meant to implement the policy speedily.
The government will also seek to create a new vice ministerial position to be in charge of energy policy at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the president added.
He was speaking at an interagency meeting on drawing up carbon-neutral strategies, joined by the heads of relevant ministries and senior ruling Democratic Party officials.
“The grand transition to a carbon-neutral society will be an opportunity to simultaneously pursue economic growth and the improvement of quality of life,” he said in his opening remarks.
He added, “(The government) is going to push for low carbonization in all economic sectors. The structural transformation of the energy system is the starting point.”
Moon revealed a scheme to place a focus on developing three key new industries — renewable energy, hydrogen and energy IT — in order to accelerate the transformation of South Korea, one of the world’s most fossil fuel-reliant economies, into a carbon-neural nation.
In particular, he said his administration will grow future car production businesses as a leading industry, pledging to lay a “firm foundation” for moving toward carbon neutrality before his tenure ends in May 2022.
Moon also said his government will consider introducing a related fiscal system, which includes the creation of a special fund to help cope with climate change, as it’s preparing to submit a long-term low-carbon growth strategy to the United Nations within this year.
He then stressed the need for international cooperation.
South Korea will push actively for joint projects with the European Union to achieve carbon neutrality and solidify policy coordination with the new US administration of Joe Biden, while strengthening trilateral partnerships with China and Japan, according to the president. (Yonhap)
By The Washington Post · Kareem Fahim, Miriam Berger, Steve Hendrix · WORLD, MIDDLE-EAST ISTANBUL – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday blamed Israel for killing Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a prominent Iranian nuclear scientist, saying it was aimed at causing turmoil before President-elect Joe Biden takes office and that Tehran would respond at the “right time.”
Fakhrizadeh was killed in a daytime ambush east of Tehran on Friday, Iranian authorities said. Though once regarded as the architect of Iran’s disbanded effort to build a nuclear weapon nearly two decades ago, he played a far less prominent role in Iran’s current programs involving reactors and uranium enrichment.
But the attack stung Iran for apparent lapses in security and intelligence and threatened wider fallout in the region less than two months before Biden takes office and seeks a possible reset in relations with Iran.
Rouhani, however, suggested that Iran could calibrate its possible responses with an eye toward the end of President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, which is supported by Israel.
“Their pressure era is coming to an end and the global conditions are changing,” he said. Officials in Israel have not commented.
A spokesperson for the European Union released a statement Saturday calling the attack “a criminal act” that “runs counter to the principle of respect for human rights the E.U. stands for.”
The statement continued, “In these uncertain times, it is more important than ever for all parties to remain calm and exercise maximum restraint to avoid escalation which cannot be in anyone’s interest.”
In a statement Saturday, Rouhani blamed the “usurper Zionist regime” – a reference to Israel – for the killing and said Fakhrizadeh’s death would not impede Iran’s scientific “achievements.” In a separate speech, Rouhani tied the killing to Trump’s coming departure from office.
Trump withdrew the United States from a nuclear pact that Iran struck with world powers five years ago. His administration has ratcheted up sanctions and other pressures on Tehran since abandoning the deal aimed at reining in Tehran’s nuclear program. Biden has pledged to work more closely with allies on Iran policies and work to rejoin the nuclear agreement.
“This brutal assassination shows that our enemies are passing through anxious weeks, weeks that they feel their pressure era is coming to an end and the global conditions are changing,” Rouhani said. He added that Israel aimed “to cause commotion and turmoil.”
A senior U.S. official said that the United States had nothing to do with the scientist’s killing and believes Iran has been told that. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said there was little doubt Israel was behind the attack.
“There is absolutely no information indicating that it was anyone other than the Israelis,” the official said, adding that the Trump administration has no desire to get drawn into a regional war by Israel.
Germany – one of the world powers part of the nuclear pact – echoed the EU’s call for avoiding escalation.
“The killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is once again worsening the situation in the region, at a time when we absolutely do not need such an escalation,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Germany’s Funke media group. He called on “all those involved to refrain from taking steps that could lead to a further escalation of the situation.”
The killing added to soaring tensions in the region amid fears that a confrontation between Iran and the United States or Israel could erupt before Biden takes office.
The front page of Iran’s hard-line Kayhan newspaper warned Israel to await an “eye for an eye.” Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, two Iran-backed Palestinian militias, issued statements Friday condemning the assassination.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah, another Iranian ally, said Friday that “the response to this crime” was in Iran’s hands, Reuters reported.
Israel’s Channel 12 News reported Saturday that Israeli embassies around the world had been put on high alert.
The Pentagon announced Friday that the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier had been deployed back to the Middle East following maritime exercises in the Indian Ocean. While the timing of the announcement was unusual, the deployment, had been initiated before Friday’s attack to support U.S. troops withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, said “there were no specific threats that triggered the return of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group,” Reuters reported.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a series of tweets Saturday warned that there would be “definitive punishment of the perpetrators” while Iran would continue “following the scientific and technological attempts of the martyr in all segments of his activity,” in a possible reference to Fakhrizadeh’s nuclear work.
Fakhrizadeh, a physics professor who was believed to be about 60, was widely regarded as the driving force behind Iran’s nuclear program, including clandestine efforts to develop a nuclear bomb in the early 2000s.
Intelligence officials identified him as the head of the Amad Plan, the secret nuclear weapons research program that sought to develop as many as six nuclear bombs before Iranian leaders ordered a halt to the program in 2003.
Once a reclusive figure, Fakhrizadeh has more recently raised his profile, allowing himself to appear on official Iranian websites, including during events held by Iran’s supreme leader.
Iran has recently increased its stockpile of enriched uranium, insisting it is intended only to power its nuclear energy plants and a research reactor. Its adversaries have countered that it puts the nation closer to producing warhead-grade material.
Israel, which maintains its own undeclared nuclear weapons program, has beseeched the international community to take tougher actions against Iran’s nuclear program and Fakhrizadeh specifically. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted the scientist’s photograph at a news conference in 2018 and advised the world to “remember his name.”
More recently, speculation has risen that Netanyahu has pushed the Trump administration to strike against Iran’s nuclear assets before Biden’s inauguration.
The Trump administration and the Biden team have yet to comment on the killing. On Friday, Trump retweeted veteran Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, who described the attack as a “major psychological and professional blow for Iran.”
Melman, author of “Spies Against Armageddon,” a history of Israeli clandestine operations, said in an interview that he would not be surprised to learn that the killing was an Israeli operation, but has gotten no such confirmation from within the government.
“There is total silence,” he said. “In this case, it is likely to stay that way.”
For Israel, Fakhrizadeh was “the number one target among the scientists,” he added.
While many saw the timing of the killing as an attempt to complicate a future Biden administration’s diplomacy with Iran, Melman said it was more likely driven by logistics, since such an ambush would have taken months to prepare.
The attack – which Iranian officials said involved a car bomb and gunmen who raked the scientist’s car – recalled the shadowy killings of at least four Iranian nuclear scientists from 2010 to 2012.
Accounts of Fakhrizadeh’s killing indicated his movements were being tracked and the attack was coordinated.
Sepah Cybery, a social media channel affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Saturday that it believed 12 attackers were involved, in addition to Fakhrizadeh’s four bodyguards, two of whom it reported were shot and are in serious condition.
Iran’s Fars news reported Friday that the car explosion sent debris flying 300 meters away and damaged an electricity tower. It also reported that one of the bodyguards was shot and killed while trying to protect Fakhrizadeh, though other outlets reported the security worker was injured.
In a message on Twitter Friday, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., wrote: “If the primary purpose of the killing of Mr. Fakhrizadeh was to make it harder to restart the Iran nuclear agreement, then this assassination does not make America, Israel or the world safer.”
Former CIA director John Brennan, a strong Trump critic, tweeted that the attack was “a criminal act & highly reckless.”
“It risks lethal retaliation & a new round of regional conflict,” he wrote. “Iranian leaders would be wise to wait for the return of responsible American leadership on the global stage & to resist the urge to respond against perceived culprits.”
Wilton Gregory becomes first Black American cardinal
InternationalNov 29. 2020Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory leads Mass on Feb, 26, 2020, at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Marvin Joseph
By The Washington Post · Chico Harlan · NATIONAL, WORLD, RELIGION, EUROPE ROME – Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington,on Saturday became the first Black American to earn the rank of cardinal, in a pandemic-altered Vatican ceremony that was strange and historic like none before it.
Because of virus travel concerns, two of the 13 new cardinals didn’t come to Rome. The others wore masks and sat in socially distanced rows inside St. Peter’s Basilica. Gregory, like some other new cardinals, had quarantined for 10 days before the ceremony at a Vatican resident building, with meals and towels dropped off at his door.
After testing negative for the third time at his Rome quarters, Gregory’s quarantine lifted Saturday morning.
Hours later, he’d received a title that heightens his clout and profile inside the Catholic Church – and makes him one of the papal electors – at a time of fierce American racial inequities and division.
Gregory said in a videoconference interview that he hopes to be a “voice for the African American community in the pope’s ear.”
“Among the people that have congratulated me and wished me well, friends and colleagues, I’ve heard this: It’s about time,” Gregory said, referring to a Black American becoming a cardinal. “But it is also an important recognition that the African American, the Black Catholic community, is an important component within the larger, universal church.”
It was the seventh time that Pope Francis has convened a consistory, as the ceremony is known. The events generally are colorful and full of ritual, and they have played an underappreciated role in Francis’s efforts to remodel the church, as he gradually builds a church leadership that reflects his priorities and styles.
The Catholic Church now has 229 cardinals, 128 of whom are under 80 years old and eligible to vote for the next pope. Of those 128, 73 have been named by Francis. That means Francis-picked cardinals will comprise the majority in the next conclave.
The event Saturday was attended by old cardinals as well as the new ones – with the new ones sitting in individual seats flanking the pope. Francis recited a homily as well as the names of the incoming cardinal class. Most chose to remove their masks when kneeling before the pope to receive their red hats; Gregory kept his on. The pope, as has been his habit throughout the pandemic, did not wear a mask.
After the ceremony, Francis took the new cardinals to pay a visit to retired Pope Benedict XVI, 93, who lives in a monastery inside the Vatican. According to a Vatican spokesman, Benedict “expressed his joy” for the visit and gave the cardinals his blessing.
In recent years, he has selected new cardinals interested in migration and critical of nationalism. He has also gone further than his predecessors in appointing non-European cardinals, an acknowledgment of how Catholicism’s power base has tilted toward Africa and South America.
Gregory, who turns 73 this month, is the fourth American named a cardinal by Francis.
Gregory said he received the news of his elevation only after Francis had announced it publicly, in an October Angelus service in St. Peter’s Square. Gregory was told of the decision in a 6:30 a.m. phone call by Cardinal Kevin Farrell.
“I want to be the first to congratulate you,” Gregory remembers Farrell saying.
“I was humbled and grateful and a little tearful all rolled up in one,” Gregory said.
When Francis first announced the new cardinals, it was unclear whether the Vatican would even try to hold an in-person consistory. But Gregory and most of the other new cardinals decided to come. Gregory tested negative for the coronavirus before leaving Washington, was tested again upon arrival in Italy, and then went into quarantine in the same residence where Francis lives.
“I thought I could do it safely,” Gregory said. “And finally, I think the Holy Father wants a face-to-face consistory.”
Gregory’s promotion to cardinal had been anticipated, dating to his appointment last year as archbishop of Washington – a position that normally comes with a cardinal’s hat. The position is both high-profile and complicated, part religion and part politics, and it has pushed the normally moderate, mild-mannered Gregory to become more outspoken. In June, he criticized President Donald Trump’s visit to a Washington shrine to Pope John Paul II, taking particular aim at the shrine’s leadership, saying the facility was being “egregiously misused and manipulated.”
Days earlier, law enforcement used rubber bullets and tear gas to clear peaceful protesters outside the White House so Trump could stage a controversial photo op holding a Bible in front of St. John’s, the Episcopal church on Lafayette Square.
Gregory’s next challenge involves working with President-elect Joe Biden, who will be the first Catholic president since John F. Kennedy. Some Catholic traditionalists say that Biden, who regularly attends Mass, should be denied the sacrament of Communion because of his support for abortion rights.
The Catholic News Agency noted that in 2004, the Vatican’s doctrinal chief, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – soon to be Pope Benedict XVI – told U.S. bishops that politicians “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion” laws were committing a grave sin. Such politicians, Ratzinger wrote, should be informed of church teaching and not given Communion.
But individual bishops have greatly differing interpretations, with some arguing that pastors should not withhold Communion as a way to pressure politicians.
Biden last year was denied Communion during a campaign stop in South Carolina. But Gregory noted that the bishop in Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Del., Fran Malooly, has not imposed such a restriction. Gregory indicated he would follow in Malooly’s path.
“I don’t envision imposing any restrictions on his participation in the church. I have to challenge him,” Gregory said. “I have to confront him. I have to remind him of what the church believes and teaches. But I have to respect and treat him with the dignity he deserves, not just as president but as a human being.”
By The Washington Post · Lesley Wroughton, Max Bearak, Danielle Paquette · WORLD, AFRICA Ethiopia’s military launched an assault on the capital of the northern Tigray region Saturday after last-minute diplomatic efforts by three former African presidents failed to persuade the fighting sides to reach a truce.
Hours later, the country’s army chief of staff said government forces had taken full control of Mekele – home to at least half a million people – and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed claimed in a separate statement that the “last phase” of the operation against leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had been completed.
A communications shutdown and bans on media access across most of Tigray has made verifying the government’s claims near impossible. Fighting began Nov. 3 and has been marked by reports of mass atrocities and a deepening humanitarian crisis in an already stressed region.
The offensive followed the end of a 72-hour ultimatum Abiy issued to the rebelling leaders of the Tigray region to lay down arms after three weeks of unrest that sent more than 40,000 civilians fleeing across the border into Sudan.
The military campaign is directed against the TPLF, the political party in charge of the province and which once ruled a coalition that led Ethiopia for nearly three decades. After Abiy’s rise, leaders returned to their power base in Tigray. Relations with the central government in recent months have imploded.
Watch: What’s behind the conflict in Ethiopia?
Abiy has rejected international calls for talks with the TPLF, saying dialogue would “nurture a culture of impunity with devastating cost to the survival of the country.” Ethiopia is made up of ten semiautonomous ethnolinguistic regions.
Abiy won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize for ending a two-decade-long standoff with neighboring Eritrea.
Abiy’s statement said that the Ethiopian military had retaken Mekele airport and a major command post in the city, freed thousands of soldiers that had been “held hostage” by the TPLF, and done so with precision to avoid civilian casualties. Tigrayan officials, however, noted heavily populated areas of Mekele were being shelled.
Ethiopian forces “started hitting with heavy weaponry and artillery the center of Mekelle,” the local government said in a statement to Tigrayan media. Video of the claim also surfaced on Facebook, and two humanitarian groups with staff in the city confirmed the reports to Agence France-Presse.
A senior diplomat said blasts rocked the city’s north on Saturday, citing satellite phone calls from a government official who heard them. Local television, which had been operating until midday, suddenly went static.
“It’s happening,” said the diplomat, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The shells appeared to be coming from surrounding areas, said a humanitarian official in Addis Ababa, who fielded reports from staffers in Mekele. No one could see federal forces.
International concern had mounted that Mekele’s half a million residents could get caught in the violence. Aid workers said the exodus from Tigray included pregnant women, children and the ill.
After fleeing Tigray, refugees in Sudan recount brutal killings
Billene Seyoum, a spokeswoman for the prime minister’s office, denied claims that Ethiopian forces were striking civilian areas. “The safety of Ethiopians in Makelle and Tigray region continues as priority for the federal government,” she said.
The three African Union envoys who met with Abiy – former Presidents Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa – urged the Ethiopian leader this week to open dialogue with the rebelling TPLF.
He has publicly refused to take that step, calling the TPLF an illegal “clique” and an internal matter for Ethiopia to resolve on its own. (He barred the envoys from seeing TPLF commanders.)
Pope Francis was among those appealing for peace Saturday.
“I invite everyone to pray for #Ethiopia where armed clashes have intensified and are causing a serious humanitarian situation,” he wrote on Twitter. “I appeal to the parties in conflict so that the violence might ceases, life may be safeguarded and the populations can regain #peace.”
The U.N. refugee agency has warned that a “full-scale humanitarian crisis” is unfolding in Tigray. Food and water may be running out in the province of 6 million, putting untold lives at risk.
Aid workers said they had no way to reach people who had been forced from their homes for weeks. Access remains unclear, several groups said, after Ethiopian officials announced the opening of humanitarian routes on Thursday.
Abiy’s government has blamed the rebels in the north for the crisis that has grabbed the world’s attention.
“The last peaceful gate which had remained open for the TPLF clique to walk through has now been firmly closed as a result of TPLF’s contempt for the people of Ethiopia,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
The most senior State Department official on African affairs, Tibor Nagy, tweeted on Saturday that “fighting and shelling in the Mekele area are a very grave concern. We urge an immediate end to conflict and restoration of peace in Tigray. Civilians must be protected and humanitarian access provided to aid those in need.”
President-elect Joe Biden’s national security adviser nominee, Jake Sullivan, urged dialogue led by the African Union.
“I’m deeply concerned about the risk of violence against civilians,” he said on Twitter, “including potential war crimes.”
President Donald Trump arrives to speak in the press briefing room at the White House on Nov. 24. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford 
Robert Fitts screams as a K-9 attacks him after he was pulled over by police for a traffic violation in Selma, Ala., on Aug. 3, 2018. MUST CREDIT: Selma Police Department .jpg)
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President Moon Jae-in speaks at a meeting on South Korea’s aim of going carbon neutral by 2050 held at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on Friday. (Yonhap) 
Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory leads Mass on Feb, 26, 2020, at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Marvin Joseph 
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