In Brief: December 30, 2020

1st reported US case of COVID-19 variant found in Colorado

DENVER — The first reported U.S. case of the COVID-19 variant that’s been seen in the United Kingdom has been discovered in Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis announced Tuesday, adding urgency to efforts to vaccinate Americans.

The variant was found in a man in his 20s who is in isolation southeast of Denver in Elbert County and has no travel history, state health officials said.

Elbert County is a mainly rural area of rolling plains at the far edge of the Denver metro area that includes a portion of Interstate 70, the state’s main east-west highway.

Colorado Politics reported there is a second suspected case of the variant in the state according to Dwayne Smith, director of public health for Elbert County. Both of the people were working in the Elbert County community of Simla. Neither of them are residents of that county — expanding the possibility of the variant’s spread throughout the state.

The Colorado State Laboratory confirmed the virus variant, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was notified.

Biden criticizes pace of vaccine rollout, vows to accelerate

WILMINGTON, Del. — President-elect Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration Tuesday for the pace of distributing COVID-19 vaccines and predicted that “things will get worse before they get better” when it comes to the pandemic.

“We need to be honest — the next few weeks and months are going to be very tough, very tough for our nation. Maybe the toughest during this entire pandemic,” Biden said during remarks in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday.

His comments come as the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 336,000 Americans, with experts warning holiday travel and gatherings could precipitate yet another spike in virus cases even as the virus has already been surging in states nationwide.

Biden encouraged Americans to “steel our spines” for challenges to come and predicted that “things are going to get worse before they get better.”

He also went after the Trump administration over its vaccination efforts, warning that the project, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, is moving at a slower pace than needed.

From wire sources

Feds decline charges against officers in Tamir Rice case

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it would not bring federal criminal charges against two Cleveland police officers in the 2014 killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, saying video of the shooting was of too poor a quality for prosecutors to conclusively establish what had happened.

In closing the case, the department brought to an end a long-running investigation into a high-profile shooting that helped galvanize the Black Lives Matter movement and that became part of the national dialogue about police use of force against minorities, including children. The decision, revealed in a lengthy statement, does not condone the officers’ actions but rather says the cumulative evidence was not enough to support a federal criminal civil rights prosecution.

Tamir was playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in Cleveland on Nov. 22, 2014, when he was shot and killed by Officer Timothy Loehmann, who is white, seconds after Loehmann and his partner, Officer Frank Garmback, arrived at the scene. The officers were called to the recreation center after a man drinking beer and waiting for a bus had called 911 to report that a “guy” was pointing a gun at people. The caller told a 911 dispatcher that it was probably a juvenile and the gun might be “fake,” though that information was never relayed to the officers.

To bring federal civil rights charges in cases like these, the Justice Department must prove that an officer’s actions willfully broke the law and are not simply the result of a mistake, negligence or bad judgment. It has been a consistently tough burden for federal prosecutors to meet across both Democratic and Republican administrations, with the Justice Department declining criminal charges against police officers in other high-profile cases in recent years, including in the deaths of Eric Garner in New York City and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

In a statement, Subodh Chandra, an attorney for the boy’s family, said the Justice Department’s “process was tainted” and the family has demanded prosecutors provide additional information about recommendations made during the probe.

Louisiana Congressman-elect Luke Letlow dead from COVID-19

BATON ROUGE, La. — Luke Letlow, Louisiana’s incoming Republican member of the U.S. House, died Tuesday night from complications related to COVID-19 only days before being sworn into office. He was 41.

Letlow spokesman Andrew Bautsch confirmed the congressman-elect’s death at Ochsner-LSU Health Shreveport.

“The family appreciates the numerous prayers and support over the past days but asks for privacy during this difficult and unexpected time,” Bautsch said in a statement. “A statement from the family along with funeral arrangements will be announced at a later time.”

Louisiana’s eight-member congressional delegation called Letlow’s death devastating.

“Luke had such a positive spirit, and a tremendously bright future ahead of him. He was looking forward to serving the people of Louisiana in Congress, and we were excited to welcome him to our delegation where he was ready to make an even greater impact on our state and our nation,” they said in a statement.

Reports: Convicted US spy Pollard arrives in Israel

JERUSALEM — Israeli media say Jonathan Pollard, who spent 30 years in U.S. prison for spying for Israel, has landed in the country with his wife.

The U.S. Justice Department announced in November that Pollard had completed his parole, clearing the way for him to move to Israel. Pollard has said it was his dream to move to the country.

Pollard arrived early Wedneseday on what appears to have been a private flight with his wife Esther. His arrival was first reported by Israel Hayom, a newspaper with close ties to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The newspaper’s editor, Boaz Bismuth tweeted: “Welcome home Jonathan Pollard! I’m in this professions since 1983 and this is the most exciting professional night I’ve had.”

Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy, sold military secrets to Israel while working at the Pentagon in the 1980s. He was arrested in 1985 after trying unsuccessfully to gain asylum at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and pleaded guilty. The espionage affair embarrassed Israel and tarnished its relations with the United States for years.

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New US dietary guidelines: No candy, cake for kids under 2

Parents now have an extra reason to say no to candy, cake and ice cream for young children. The first U.S. government dietary guidelines for infants and toddlers, released Tuesday, recommend feeding only breast milk for at least six months and no added sugar for children under age 2.

“It’s never too early to start,” said Barbara Schneeman, a nutritionist at University of California, Davis. “You have to make every bite count in those early years.”

The guidelines stop short of two key recommendations from scientists advising the government. Those advisers said in July that everyone should limit their added sugar intake to less than 6% of calories and men should limit alcohol to one drink per day.

Instead, the guidelines stick with previous advice: limit added sugar to less than 10% of calories per day after age 2. And men should limit alcohol to no more than two drinks per day, twice as much as advised for women.

“I don’t think we’re finished with alcohol,” said Schneeman, who chaired a committee advising the government on the guidelines. “There’s more we need to learn.”

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Argentine Senate weighs fate of abortion in pope’s homeland

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — The decades-long fight by Argentine women’s groups for legal abortion was being decided by the Senate in a debate that spilled into the early hours of Wednesday before a vote that could change the outlook for the procedure across a continent where it is still largely illegal.

The bill, which would legalize elective abortion in the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy, was already approved by Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies and had the support of President Alberto Fernández, meaning the Senate vote would be its final hurdle in the homeland of Pope Francis.

A previous abortion bill was voted down by lawmakers in 2018, but this time it was being backed by the center-left government. Seventy senators, more than half of them men, were to vote on the measure sometime Wednesday. The outcome was considered uncertain.

“The vote is even,” said Sen. Nancy González, a backer of the legislation. “This is vote by vote. We are still working on the undecided.”

Outside the Senate in Buenos Aires, pro- and anti-abortion activists gathered, with the bill’s supporters wearing the color green that represents their pro-abortion movement.