World News – US – Kansas Mayor resigns after taking up USA TODAY’s story of the city’s masked mandate, citing phone and email threats

DODGE CITY, Kan. – A Kansas mayor has resigned after responding to comments she made on a USA TODAY story in support of a mask mandate in her city.

“I understand that various things that happen in society like the pandemic, politics, the economy, etc.. , are under a lot of pressure, but I also believe that these days people don’t act like they normally would, « said Warshaw. « I think it is best for me and the city that at this point I like to step away from the commission and the mayor’s office so that the city can move forward and be the best it can be, because I belong to the city faith. « .

A small town has fulfilled its COVID-19 mask mandates. Now the residents are paying the price.

Since Dec. . Upon releasing the USA TODAY story, Warshaw said she encountered aggression, including threats from Dodge City citizens over the phone and email. Some threatening emails were handed over to police, she said.

« We just felt we had to do something so that everyone knew how important it is that everyone is responsible for the health and well-being of each other, » Warshaw was quoted as saying in the USA TODAY story.

Dodge City is the most populous city in Ford County and one of the largest cities in western Kansas. On Nov.. a mask mandate passed. 16 after more than 1 in 10 residents of the district became infected with the virus.

In an interview with the Dodge City Daily Globe, part of the USA TODAY Network, Warshaw said she has not regretted voting for the mask mandate.

« This is harder for me than people think, » Warshaw said when she started crying. “I really love this city with all my heart. I still believe in this city and I believe in its ability not to hurt each other. ”

Police are « reviewing the contents of the notice to determine appropriate course of action, » said Dodge City police chief Drew Francis of alleged threats against Warshaw.

« I was sad to see the letter from Mayor Warshaw, » said Commissioner Kent Smoll. « I haven’t spoken to her. Your decision is a personal one and I respect it. She was and is a great ambassador for Dodge City. I wish Joyce all the best. « 

Warshaw was appointed to the City Commission in 2012. In 2015, she was elected mayor, becoming the third female mayor in Dodge City history.

Contributors: Judd Weil, Dodge City Daily Globe; Andrea Ball, Jayme Fraser and Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on Dodge City Daily Globe: Kansas Mayor Joyce Warshaw Resigns After Masked Mandate Backlash

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo figured out what if you sent out 900 invitations to an indoor Christmas party during a pandemic that hit at least 300. 000 Americans Killed: Not that many people show up. The Tuesday event for the families of diplomats in high risk locations was hosted by Pompeo and his wife Susan in Washington, D. C.. . By Monday evening only about 70 people had accepted their invitations, and even fewer showed up, two U. . S.. . Officials aware of the matter told the Washington Post. Pompeo should speak, but cancel his address and have someone else deliver a message in his place, the Post reports. Government health officials have urged people not to attend indoor gatherings during the pandemic, and several lawmakers and the American Foreign Service Association, a non-partisan union that represents diplomats, urged Pompeo to cancel the party over concerns that it was a super Spreader event would act. The State Department announced that masks would be required and social distancing would be enforced. Photos received from the post office show a masked Santa Claus greeting children, with maskless people sitting down to eat around him. One woman, the wife of a diplomat who is now overseas, told the Post that she had not responded to her invitation because she feared there would be no one to look after her children if she got sick. « It was a completely irresponsible party to throw, » she said. More stories from the week. com Joe Biden still doesn’t get Trump’s neighbors from Mar-a-Lago don’t want him to move there. Maybe they can stop him too. Late Night Hosts Debate Whose Biden Congratulations Are Worse For Trump: Putin Or McConnell?

The European Union will bring its meeting to approve the coronavirus vaccine forward to next week amid public anger in Germany over the delay. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced the move on Tuesday after Angela Merkel’s government faced a growing backlash for insisting on waiting for EU approval. A leading German economist warned the delay could cost thousands of lives, and the country’s best-selling newspaper asked, « Why the hell don’t we start vaccinating and saving lives? » A full week after vaccinations started in the UK, the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is still awaiting approval in the country where it was developed, as the Merkel government refuses to grant an urgent rapid approval. « We are not making an urgent permit, but a proper permit, » said German Health Minister Jens Spahn at a press conference. “We have said from the start that we would do this on a European and not a national basis. « We » is stronger than « I ». ”

When diplomats gathered at the headquarters of the African Union earlier this year to prepare for the annual summit of heads of state and government, staff at the international organization made a disturbing discovery. Someone stole footage from their own security cameras. On a tip from Japanese cyber researchers, technology workers at the African Union (AU) discovered that a group of suspected Chinese hackers had manipulated a group of servers in the basement of an administrative appendix to suck up silent surveillance videos from the AU’s sprawling campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky. ) finally confirmed on Tuesday that President-elect Joe Biden won the presidency on November. 3, congratulates Biden and Senate Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. More than 12 hours later, at 12:41 p.m.. m. President Trump responded in a tweet that began with a third person claiming that his allies criticized McConnell for congratulating Biden and then moved on to the plea that it was « too early to give up ». « Trump has not publicly acknowledged his loss. > Trump, somewhat predictably, not happy that McConnell recognized the election result. picture. Twitter. com / 1mhfIcqjGC >> – Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) 16. December 2020 After the electoral college confirmed Biden’s decisive victory on Monday, the Senate Republicans confirmed his victory and culminated in McConnell’s congratulations. Trump believed until the end that Republican lawmakers would step inside the electoral college and voter will to overthrow Biden’s victory and turn it upside down, Axios reports. He’s now « depressed to realize that his supporters gave up in 2020 » and insists he won by pointing to the prediction by pollster John McLaughlin that he would be re-elected if he was over 70. Would win 000 votes. Trump won 74. 2 million votes on the last record while Biden won 81. 3 million. More stories from the week. com report: Of the hundreds of people invited to Mike Pompeo’s indoor Christmas party, a few dozen have popped up. Joe Biden still doesn’t get it. Trump’s neighbors in Mar-a-Lago don’t want him to move there. Maybe they can stop him too.

President Trump is leaving the White House, but he won’t do it quietly.

The accused gunman, who has not been identified by police, has been charged with capital murder and held in Tarrant County Jail on $ 1 million bail.

China is forcing hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other minorities to hand-pick cotton in the western region of Xinjiang, a major source of global cotton. This comes from a report by a Washington-based think tank. According to estimates by human rights activists, Chinese authorities have arrested more than a million Uyghurs and other, mostly Muslim minorities, in detention centers in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing denies that Uighur rights are being abused, saying that re-education centers provide vocational training to help people find employment and are necessary to curb extremism. Information from Chinese government documents and state media reports now shows that at least half a million people were forced to pick cotton through a government-mandated labor transfer and poverty alleviation system, according to the Center for Global Policy. In 2018 alone, three Uighur-majority areas in Xinjiang mobilized at least 570. 000 people to pick cotton under the program. This emerges from the think tank report published on Monday. It is estimated that the total number of ethnic minority people sent to harvest cotton « probably exceeds that number by several hundred thousand ». .

Raphael Warnock, Georgia Senate candidate, compared U. . S.. . Senators addressed « gangsters and thugs » in a 2017 sermon after the corpse passed the tax cut and labor bill, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, has criticized Republicans of other statements made in sermons, as well as his defense of President Obama’s former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. « While others slept, members of the US Senate declared war and launched a vicious and vicious attack on the most vulnerable people in America, » Warnock told parishioners about the tax law. « Herod is at large. Herod is a cynical politician willing to kill children and kill the child health program to preserve his own wealth and power. « Warnock went on » Friday night, the United States Senate passed a slim majority vote to search the pockets of the poor, sick, old and unborn to fill the pockets of the ultra-rich. Don’t tell me about gangsters and thugs on the streets, there are more gangsters and thugs in Washington, D. . C.. . , in the Capitol as there is . . . « The pastor paused as the crowd applauded the sermon. The law was passed without the assistance of a Democratic senator. While Warnock’s opponent Kelly Loeffler was not in the Senate at the time, Georgia Republican Senator David Perdue voted in favor of the bill. Republicans and Democrats are focusing their resources on the Senate runoff on Jan.. January, with Warnock facing Loeffler and the reigning Perdue facing progressive challenger Jon Ossoff. If the Democrats are able to win both seats, the Senate will be split 50-50 along party lines, with new Vice President Kamala Harris having the casting vote.

President Trump may refuse to admit he is leaving the White House in January, but First Lady Melania Trump and the Secret Service are reportedly preparing for his post-presidency life in Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Florida. However, there may be one problem with this plan: the neighbors. And thanks to the legal agreements signed in the 1990s that Trump signed, they may be able to deter him from making Mar-a-Lago his next home, reports the Washington Post. Trump’s neighbors in Mar-a-Lago sent a letter to the City of Palm Beach and the Secret Service on Tuesday, demanding that the city notify Trump that he cannot live in Mar-a-Lago because he has that right In 1993, the Post signed reports. Telling Trump that he cannot use Mar-a-Lago as a residence will « avoid an embarrassing situation » in which the former president will have to leave after moving in, the letter said. Trump converted Mar-a-Lago into a private club in 1993 because he needed the money and the property was expensive to maintain, the Post reports. However, in order to get approval for the conversion, Palm Beach let him sign an agreement that no club member can, among other things, stay in Mar-a-Lago for more than 21 days a year or seven consecutive days. His lawyer promised at the time that Trump would not live in Mar-a-Lago. « There is absolutely no legal theory that he can use this property as both a residence and a club, » Glenn Zeitz, a nearby Palm Beach homeowner, told the Post. « Basically he’s playing a dead hand. « Along with the 1993 agreement, the Post reports, Trump has given development rights to the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation and pledged to » forever « relinquish his right to develop Mar-a-Lago or use it for » purposes other than.  » to use the club « . « Palm Beach has sporadically enforced the deal, giving Trump extra leeway while serving as president and visiting the property frequently. However, the 1993 deal could be a particular headache for the Secret Service as it tries to comply with all state and local laws while wearing it out of its protective obligations. A Trump organization spokesman told the Post: « There is no document or agreement prohibiting President Trump from using Mar-a-Lago as a residence. « . « Read more on the Washington Post. More stories from the week. com report: Of the hundreds of people invited to Mike Pompeo’s indoor Christmas party, a few dozen have popped up. Joe Biden still doesn’t get it. The Debate of the Late Night Hosts Whose Biden Congratulations Worse for Trump: Putin or McConnell?

Several fighting broke out after the group of children were dropped off at a mall in Mount Healthy, Ohio, police said.

A farmer from a rural part of Madhya Pradesh, India got rich overnight after finding a 14. 98 carat diamond in his leased land. Lakhan Yadav, 45, from Krishna-Kalyanpur village in Madhya Pradesh, sold the diamond for 61 on Tuesday. 330 GBP at auction. Mr. Yadav found the diamond in his country almost 20 km from his village. « It’s pure luck. You get it once in a lifetime. Everyone doesn’t understand, ”Yadav told the Daily Telegraph. Mr. Yadav found the fortune in 625 square meters of land he leased from the government. The farmer owns two hectares that he bought with the compensation, two buffaloes and now a motorcycle that he bought with the first payment he received after the diamond was deposited with the district administration. During Covid’s nationwide lockdown, his school-age children were looking after the buffalo at home and he went to dig land. Mr. Yadav, who is illiterate, now wants to spend the money to raise his children. “With this money, anything is possible. I’m going to build a new house and spend money on my children’s education, ”he said. Mr. Yadav said he would put the rest of his money in a bank account so he could live off the interest when he was old. “I am unable to invest this money because I am illiterate. I want my children to study well and then spend the money wisely, ”he said. However, it was not enough to be lucky once and Mr. Yadav would like to continue his search for more diamonds. “A person is never satisfied with money and life. Nobody wants an end to their life and nobody wants them to stop getting more money, ”he said. Madhya Pradesh is rich in minerals. It is the only diamond producer in India.

According to official information, a Taliban delegation will arrive on Wednesday for a three-day visit to the Pakistani capital as both sides of the Afghan peace process continue consultations during a break in negotiations. The Taliban delegation, led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the leading political leader of the militant group, will meet with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Foreign Minister during the visit, according to a statement by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry. Two Taliban political sources in Doha told Reuters that they would also hold a meeting in Pakistan under their leadership.

Looking at Florida’s COVID-19 death record, the Sun Sentinel found a pattern in South Florida that suggests the state has « manipulated a backlog of unregistered deaths » to artificially raise the daily death toll before the November presidential election were low, the newspaper reported Tuesday. There is a delay between the date a person in Florida dies of COVID-19 and the date the state reports the death as part of the public census. With a few exceptions, the Sun Sentinel determined this from October. 24, Florida stopped including deaths that occurred more than a month earlier in daily counts. It wasn’t until November. 17, two weeks after the election, that these lagged deaths were consistently included in the daily balance sheet. These deaths have « long been an integral part of the daily totals in Florida » as it can take some time for death reports to get from a doctor’s office to the health department, Sun Sentinel reports. For example from Sept. . 23 to Oct. . 20, the state referred to 1 in its daily numbers. 128 deaths that occurred at least a month earlier. This was responsible for 44 percent of the deaths announced in those four weeks. On Oct. . 21, the state said it would begin doing additional checks on any suspected COVID-19 death in Florida before adding it to the official census. Florida Gov. . Ron DeSantis (R), a supporter of President Trump, has downplayed the coronavirus pandemic in the past, and Sun Sentinel said he also speculated that the state’s death statistics were inflated. The Sun Sentinel said it asked several state officials about the data samples, including the Florida Department of Health spokesman, and no one would comment. Scott David Herr, a Florida computer scientist who tracks the state’s daily COVID-19 data, told the Sun Sentinel, « It’s hard to know if voting time is limited or if other things happen randomly. « . The Department of Health did not explain why delays were inconsistent. When they keep changing what’s going on behind the scenes, when the delays keep changing, it gets confusing. « Read more on the Sun Sentinel. More stories from the week. com report: Of the hundreds of people invited to Mike Pompeo’s indoor Christmas party, a few dozen have popped up. Joe Biden still doesn’t get it. Trump’s neighbors in Mar-a-Lago don’t want him to move there. Maybe they can stop him too.

« There were several talks with the US government about a stronger supply in the second quarter, » said Scott Gottlieb, a board member of Pfizer.

Assassins killed the deputy governor of the Afghan capital by placing a magnetic bomb on his armored car while he was driving to work. Mahboobullah Mohebi was killed along with his secretary in a wave of murders of politicians, officials, journalists and activists. Elsewhere, a deputy provincial council member was killed hours earlier in a similar attack in remote western Ghor province. Neither attack has been alleged, but government officials blame the Taliban for the wave of attacks, saying the insurgents want to sow fear and destabilize the government. The Islamic State Group has also taken responsibility for several attacks in recent months. The use of magnetic or so-called sticky bombs has increased sharply in Afghanistan, and in recent weeks Kabul has seen attacks almost every day. The homemade appliances are placed under vehicles or sometimes on their roofs. The most sophisticated versions are designed to penetrate the protection of an armored car. Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the council overseeing the tortuous talks with the Taliban, condemned the attack, saying the increase in attacks was a clear enemy of the Afghan peace process. Sima Samar, the president’s special envoy and minister of state for human rights, tweeted that « people are fed up with terrorist attacks every day ». . She also called on the Taliban to « agree to a ceasefire to stop the killing and more bloodshed ». . America’s troop withdrawal agreement with the Taliban and the tentative start of negotiations between the Ashraf Ghani government and its Taliban enemies have not stopped the bloodshed in the country. A ceasefire is high on the government’s agenda, but the Taliban’s military pressure is their greatest negotiating tool and the militants have refused to reduce attacks. If clashes continue, civilians and government forces are killed every week. Talks between the two sides were suspended for a 20-day break on Tuesday after months of trying to work out basic ground rules and an agenda for discussion. Separately, the Afghan Ministry of Defense said the army had repulsed a Taliban attack in the Arghandab district outside Kandahar, where the insurgents are waging a complex offensive.

Georgian Foreign Minister Brad Raffensperger wants the Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to reassess their priorities. On Monday, the two senators, facing runoff elections in January, again tried to discourage confidence in the upcoming election and requested an updated list of registered voters before the early voting began. But as Republican Raffensperger pointed out in a press release on Tuesday, Loeffler and Perdue already had the information they were looking for. « Although I told the Republican Party to stop focusing on me and instead focus their energies on winning the Senate runoff, they obviously weren’t listening, » Raffensperger said in the press release. He called it « embarrassing » that Perdue and Loeffler not only do not know that the information they want is publicly available, but also that it is in the hands of their campaigns. A representative from the National Republican Senatorial Committee confirmed the campaigns have the lists. > The early voting has started but it is not too late to call their offices and get their campaigns in order. >> – GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (@GaSecofState) 15. Raffensperger has refused to represent President Trump and the false claims of other Republicans about widespread election fraud and election rigging during the 2020 elections, instead confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s victory there and receiving threats for it. More stories from the week. com report: Of the hundreds of people invited to Mike Pompeo’s indoor Christmas party, a few dozen have popped up. Joe Biden still doesn’t get it. Trump’s neighbors in Mar-a-Lago don’t want him to move there. Maybe they can stop him too.

British scientists are trying to determine whether the rapid spread of a new variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 in southern England is related to key mutations they discovered in the strain, they said Tuesday. The mutations include changes to the important « spike » protein that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus uses to infect human cells, said a group of scientists who are tracking the genetics of the virus, but it’s not yet clear whether these make it more infectious. « Efforts are being made to confirm whether or not any of these mutations are contributing to increased transmission, » the scientists from the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium said in a statement (https: // bit). ly / 3mhpTJX).

Resignation, Kansas, Dodge City