High winds
threaten to whip up flames approaching Lake Tahoe
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — A day after an explosive wildfire emptied a resort city at the southern tip of Lake Tahoe, a huge firefighting force braced for strong winds Tuesday as some residents in neighboring Nevada were ordered to evacuate.
The city of South Lake Tahoe, usually bustling with summer tourists, was eerily empty and the air thick and hazy with smoke from the Caldor Fire, one of two major fires burning in the same area. On Monday, roughly 22,000 residents jammed the city’s main artery for hours after they were ordered to leave as the fire advanced, chewing up drought-stricken vegetation.
The National Weather Service warned that weather conditions through Wednesday would include low humidity, dry fuel and wind gusts up to 30 mph (48 kph).
“That’s definitely not going to help the firefighting efforts,” said Courtney Coats, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service.
The fire was 3 miles outside of South Lake Tahoe, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Battalion Chief Henry Herrera told KGO-TV.
COVID recession pushed Social Security insolvency up a year
WASHINGTON — The sharp shock of the coronavirus recession pushed Social Security a year closer to insolvency but left Medicare’s exhaustion date unchanged, the government reported Tuesday in a counterintuitive assessment that deepens the uncertainty around the nation’s bedrock retirement programs.
The new projections in the annual Social Security and Medicare trustees reports indicate that Social Security’s massive trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits in 2034 instead of last year’s estimated exhaustion date of 2035. For the first time in 39 years the cost of delivering benefits will exceed the program’s total income from payroll tax collections and interest during this year. From here on, Social Security will be tapping its savings to pay full benefits.
The depletion date for Medicare’s trust fund for inpatient care remained unchanged from last year, estimated in 2026.
In the 1980s, financial warnings about Social Security prompted then-President Ronald Reagan and lawmakers of both parties in Congress to collaborate on a long-term solvency plan, but such action is unlikely in today’s bitter political climate. Democrats who control the White House and Congress offered assurances they would protect both programs.
“The Biden-Harris administration is committed to safeguarding these programs and ensuring they continue to deliver economic security and health care to older Americans,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
Texas Legislature sends sweeping GOP voting bill to governor
AUSTIN, Texas — The GOP-controlled Texas Legislature passed a broad overhaul of the state’s election laws Tuesday, tightening already strict voting rules and dealing a bruising defeat to Democrats who waged a monthslong fight over what they argued was a brazen attempt to disenfranchise minorities and other Democratic-leaning voters.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said he will sign the bill, the latest in a national GOP campaign to add new hurdles to voting in the name of security. The effort, which led to new restrictions in Georgia, Florida, Arizona and elsewhere, was spurred in part by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
Texas Democrats fought the legislation for months, arguing the bill was tailored to make it harder for young people, racial and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities — all Democratic-leaning voters — to cast ballots, just as they see the demographics shifting to favor their party. The bill specifically targets Democratic strongholds, including Houston’s Harris County, further tightening rules in a state already considered among the hardest places to cast a ballot.
From wire sources
The legislation set off a heated summer in Texas of walkouts by Democrats, Republicans threatening them with arrest, Abbott vetoing the paychecks of thousands of rank-and-file staffers when the bill failed to reach him sooner, and accusations of racism and voter suppression.
“The emotional reasons for not voting for it are that it creates hardships for people because of the color of their skin and their ethnicity, and I am part of that class of people,” said Democrat Garnet Coleman, a state representative whose return to the Capitol earlier this month helped end a 38-day standoff.
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Non-fan of R. Kelly describes still falling prey to him
NEW YORK — A woman who wasn’t a fan of R. Kelly ended up getting exposed to a sexually transmitted disease after he enticed her to join him on the road, she testified on Tuesday at the R&B entertainer’s sex-trafficking trial.
The witness, taking the stand without using her real name, said she was 19 when her older half sister invited her to a Kelly concert in San Antonio in 2017. Her sibling was a fan of his music, she said, but “I was not.”
The sisters were invited to a backstage after-party — the beginning of a brief relationship that had elements also described by other victims alleging sexual abuse by Kelly when they were still in high school. Kelly paid for woman’s flights and hotel rooms to his concerts in cities where he demanded sex from her in hotel rooms and other locations.
A prosecutor asked whether he told her he had herpes or wore condoms. “No, he did not,” she responded. Earlier in the trial — now in its third week — the jury heard Kelly’s personal physician describe treating him for herpes for several years and from another woman who claimed he gave her herpes from unprotected sex.
Kelly, 54, has repeatedly denied accusations that he preyed on victims during a 30-year career highlighted by his 1996 smash hit “I Believe I Can Fly.” His lawyers have portrayed his accusers as groupies who are lying about their relationships with him.
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Lawyer: Britney Spears ‘will not be extorted’ by father
LOS ANGELES — Britney Spears and her new attorney say her father is trying to get about $2 million in payments before stepping down from the conservatorship that controls her life and money, a move they liken to extortion in a court filing Tuesday.
The document filed by lawyer Mathew Rosengart says the upcoming scheduled accounting of the conservatorship, which James Spears says he wants completed before he steps down, will mean significant payments for him.
“Britney Spears will not be extorted,” the filing says. “Mr. Spears’s blatant attempt to barter suspension and removal in exchange for approximately $2 million in payments, on top of the millions already reaped from Ms. Spears’s estate by Mr. Spears and his associates, is a non-starter.”
A representative for James Spears did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The filing is a supplement to Rosengart’s July petition on Britney Spears’ behalf for the removal and suspension of James Spears, which will be addressed at a Sept. 29 hearing.
