In Brief: October 24, 2020

Washington state discovers first ‘murder hornet’ nest in US

SPOKANE, Wash. — Scientists in Washington state have discovered the first nest of so-called murder hornets in the United States and plan to wipe it out Saturday to protect native honeybees, officials said.

Workers with the state Agriculture Department spent weeks searching, trapping and using dental floss to tie tracking devices to Asian giant hornets, which can deliver painful stings to people and spit venom but are the biggest threat to honeybees that farmers depend on to pollinate crops.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we did it,” agency spokeswoman Karla Salp said at a virtual briefing. Bad weather delayed plans Friday to destroy the nest found in Blaine, a city north of Seattle.

The nest is about the size of a basketball and contains an estimated 100 to 200 hornets, according to scientists, who suspected it was in the area ever since the invasive insects began appearing late last year. Officials have said it’s not known how they arrived in North America.

Despite their nickname and the hype that has stirred fears in an already bleak year, the world’s largest hornets kill at most a few dozen people a year in Asian countries, and experts say it is probably far less. Meanwhile, hornets, wasps and bees typically found in the United States kill an average of 62 people a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.

US Navy: Two onboard training plane killed in Alabama crash

FOLEY, Ala. — A U.S. Navy training plane that took off from Florida crashed Friday in an Alabama residential neighborhood near the Gulf Coast, killing both people in the plane, authorities said.

Zach Harrell, a spokesperson for Commander, Naval Air Forces, said both people in the T-6B Texan II training plane died, but they weren’t immediately releasing their names. No injuries were reported on the ground.

Foley Fire Chief Joey Darby said responders encountered a “large volume of fire” with a home and several cars engulfed in flames. Firefighters were able to make “a quick stop on the fire,” the chief told local news outlets.

The crash occurred southeast of Mobile, near the city of Foley and the town of Magnolia Springs. Darby called the neighborhood a “heavily populated” residential area. No firefighters were injured, he added.

The plane had flown out of Naval Air Station Whiting Field, about 30 miles (48.28 kilometers) northeast of Pensacola, Florida, Navy spokeswoman Julie Ziegenhorn said.

Trump, Biden scrap on oil, virus with just over a week to go

PENSACOLA, Fla. — President Donald Trump and his allies fought for support in pivotal battleground states Friday after a debate performance that gave new hope to anxious Republicans. Democrat Joe Biden, campaigning close to home, tried to clean up a debate misstep while urging voters to stay focused on the president’s inability to control the worsening pandemic.

The surge of activity with just 11 days remaining in the 2020 contest highlighted the candidates’ divergent strategies, styles and policy prescriptions that are shaping the campaign’s closing days. More than 52 million votes have already been cast, with an additional 100 million or so expected before a winner is declared.

The coronavirus pandemic has pushed Trump onto the defensive for much of the fall, but for the moment it is Biden’s team that has been forced to explain itself. In the final minutes of Thursday night’s debate, the former vice president said he supports a “transition” away from oil in the U.S. in favor of renewable energy. The campaign released a statement hours later declaring that he would phase out taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuel companies, not the industry altogether.

But Trump, campaigning in Florida, repeatedly seized on the issue.

“That could be one of the biggest mistakes made in presidential debate history,” he gloated at a rally at The Villages, a sprawling retirement community in Florida, where thousands of people gathered outdoors on a polo field. Most did not wear masks.

Biden’s warning on oil tests voter resolve on climate change

OKLAHOMA CITY — Joe Biden is confronting the harsh political realities of combating climate change.

The Democratic presidential nominee has spent months touting a $2 trillion plan to boost investment in clean energy and stop all climate-damaging emissions from the U.S. economy by 2050. The plan implied that he would wean the U.S. off oil and gas, but Biden wasn’t so explicit about the industry’s fate — until Thursday night.

During the final moments of the presidential debate, Biden said he would “transition away from the oil industry.”

President Donald Trump, trailing Biden in many national and battleground state polls, immediately sensed an opportunity to appeal to voters in competitive states like Texas and Pennsylvania that produce oil and gas.

“Basically what he is saying is he is going to destroy the oil industry,” Trump said. “Will you remember that, Texas? Will you remember that, Pennsylvania? Oklahoma? Ohio?”

From wire sources

Fiasco over pope’s cut civil union quote intensifies impact

ROME — The world premiere of a documentary on Pope Francis was supposed to have been a bright spot for a papacy locked down by a pandemic and besieged by a corruption scandal, recalling Francis’ glory days traveling the world to bless the oppressed.

But the red carpet rollout of “Francesco” has been anything but bright, with evidence that the Vatican censored the pope last year by deleting his endorsement of same-sex civil unions from an interview, only to have the footage resurface in the new film.

Aside from the firestorm the remarks created, the “Francesco” fiasco has highlighted the Vatican’s often self-inflicted communications wounds and Francis’ willingness to push his own agenda, even at the expense of fueling pushback from conservative Catholics.

That pushback was swift and came from predictable corners: Cardinal Raymond Burke, Francis’ frequent nemesis on matters of doctrine, said the pope’s comments were devoid of any “magisterial weight.” But in a statement, Burke expressed concern that such personal opinions coming from the pope “generate great bewilderment and cause confusion and error among Catholic faithful.”

The kerfuffle began Wednesday with the world premiere of “Francesco,” a feature-length film on Francis and the issues he cares most about: climate change, refugees and social inequality. Midway through, Francis delivers the bombshell quote that gays deserve to be part of the family and that he supported civil unions, or a “ley de convivencia civil” as he said in Spanish — to give them legal protections.

Trump campaign sues in Nevada to stop Vegas-area vote count

LAS VEGAS — The Trump campaign and Nevada Republicans asked a state judge on Friday to stop the count of Las Vegas-area mail-in ballots, alleging that “meaningful observation” of signature-checking is impossible in the state’s biggest and most Democratic-leaning county.

A lawsuit filed in state court less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 election complains that observers haven’t been allowed close enough to workers and machines at the busy vote-counting center to see whether ballots that get second- and third-step validation should be rejected.

Judge James Wilson in Carson City declined to issue an immediate order to stop the count, but scheduled a hearing next Wednesday on the request.

The battle is the latest among court skirmishes across the U.S. amid President Donald Trump’s doubts about issues including voter registration, voter rolls and mail-in ballot deadlines prompted by the pandemic.

“There has been great concern whether the rolls are clean and properly registered voters are the ones receiving ballots, signing them and mailing them back,” Trump for President Nevada co-chairman Adam Laxalt said. “All we want is to be part of the signature verification process and the ability to challenge a mail-in signature.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger feels ‘fantastic’ after heart surgery

LOS ANGELES — Arnold Schwarzenegger says he is feeling “fantastic” after his recent heart surgery.

The 73-year-old “Terminator” actor and former California governor said on social media Friday that he had a new aortic valve implanted in his heart. He posted a photo of himself with a thumbs up from his hospital bed.

“Thanks to the team at the Cleveland Clinic, I have a new aortic valve to go along with my new pulmonary valve from my last surgery,” he wrote. The actor underwent heart surgery in 2018 to replaced a pulmonary valve that was originally installed in 1997.

Schwarzenegger also posted some photos of himself standing in front of a few monuments in Cleveland.

“I feel fantastic and have already been walking the streets of Cleveland enjoying your amazing statues,” he said.