Trump presses Georgia governor to help subvert election

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump fruitlessly pressed Georgia's governor on Saturday to call a special legislative session aimed at subverting the presidential election results in that state as Trump’s fixation with his defeat overshadowed his party's campaign to save its majority in the Senate.

Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp spoke by phone hours before Trump was to appear at a rally in Valdosta, Georgia, where Republicans hoped the president would dedicate his energy to imploring their supporters to vote in two runoff elections Jan. 5.

But it remained an open question whether his first postelection political rally would be a mission to help his party or himself.

Hours before the event, Trump asked Kemp in the phone call to order the legislative session; the governor refused, according to a senior government official in Georgia with knowledge of the call who was not authorized to discuss the private conversation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. A person close to the White House who was briefed on the matter verified that account of the call.

According to a tweet from the governor, Trump also asked him to order an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in his state, a step Kemp is not empowered to take because he has no authority to interfere in the electoral process on Trump’s behalf.

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Religious right eyes Biden warily after Trump's good favor

WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservative evangelical Christians have proven some of Donald Trump’s staunchest allies during his presidency. As his administration draws to a close, some of those backers are approaching President-elect Joe Biden with skepticism, but not antagonism.

Christian conservatives who stood by Trump through moments of crisis and success are hardly comfortable with his loss, and several have yet to fully acknowledge Biden as the winner of the election amid ongoing, unfounded fraud claims by the president. But they’re largely not echoing the harsh tone Trump directed toward his Democratic rival during the campaign, when he claimed baselessly that Biden is “against God.”

Texas-based megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, a stalwart evangelical booster of Trump, said Christians are obliged “to pray for what appears to be President-elect Biden. If he succeeds, all of America succeeds.”

Jeffress described himself as “deeply disappointed” by the apparent loss of a president he considers “a friend,” but added that he would respond to any outreach attempt by Biden, just as he did with Trump. The possibility that Biden could “be pulled away from extremist positions” held by other Democrats, Jeffress said, is “a plus not just for conservative Christians, but for all of America.”

It’s highly unlikely that Christian conservatives could develop a close relationship with Biden, whose support for abortion rights and stances on other issues stand in stark disagreement with the religious right. However, the lack of a combative tone from pro-Trump religious conservatives could create space for some common ground between the Catholic president-elect and other evangelicals who have not tied themselves as directly to Trump.

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Southern California, San Joaquin Valley under restrictions

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Faced with a dire shortage of hospital beds, health officials announced Saturday the vast region of Southern California and a large swath of the Central Valley will be placed under a sweeping new lockdown in an urgent attempt to slow the rapid rise of coronavirus cases.

The California Department of Public Health said the intensive care unit capacity in both regions' hospitals had fallen below a 15% threshold that triggers the new measures, which include strict closures for businesses and new controls on activities. They will take effect Sunday evening and remain in place for at least three weeks, meaning the lockdown will cover the Christmas holiday.

Much of the state is on the brink of the same restrictions. Some regions have opted to impose them even before the mandate kicks in, including five San Francisco Bay Area counties where the measures also take effect starting Sunday.

With a new lockdown looming, many rushed out to supermarkets Saturday and lined up outside salons to squeeze in a haircut before the orders in some areas take effect on Sunday.

San Francisco resident Michael Duranceau rushed to a market to prepare.

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A bleak outlook for millions facing cutoff of US jobless aid

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Tina Morton recently faced a choice: Pay bills — or buy a birthday gift for a child? Derrisa Green is falling further behind on rent. Sylvia Soliz has had her electricity cut off.

Unemployment has forced aching decisions on millions of Americans and their families in the face of a rampaging viral pandemic that has closed shops and restaurants, paralyzed travel and left millions jobless for months. Now, their predicaments stand to grow bleaker yet if Congress fails to extend two unemployment programs that are set to expire the day after Christmas.

If no agreement is reached in negotiations taking place on Capitol Hill, more than 9 million people will lose federal jobless aid that averages about $320 a week and that typically serves as their only source of income.

Green, 39, and her husband are among them. An end to their unemployment benefits would force them to keep missing rent payments on their home in Dyer, Indiana, near Chicago. The couple have eight children. Green's husband is a self-employed truck driver whose business disappeared when the pandemic erupted in the spring. Only in October did he start to pick up occasional work.

He now receives about $235 a week in unemployment aid. Even so, “all of our bills are late,” Green said. They’ve received several shutoff notices from utilities before managing to pay just before service was to be cut off.

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'Our kids are the sacrifices': Parents push schools to open

LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. (AP) — The activism of Jennifer Dale began when she watched her third grade daughter struggle with distance learning, kicking and screaming through her online classes.

The mother of three initially sent emails to her local school officials with videos of the disastrous school days for her middle daughter, Lizzie, who has Down syndrome. Over time, she connected with other parents and joined several protests calling for school buildings to reopen.

Now she helps organize events and has become a voice for what has become a statewide movement of parents calling for children to return to school in Oregon, one of only a handful of states that has required at least a partial closure of schools as long as local coronavirus infections remain above certain levels.

“This just isn’t plausible anymore. It’s not fair to the kids, who I am afraid aren’t getting an adequate education,” Dale said during an interview at her home in Lake Oswego as she juggled her work and helping her children who are distance learning. “Something needs to change. It is not working, and our kids are the sacrifices.”

In debates nationwide about opening schools, parents unhappy with distance learning are taking increasingly vocal roles in calling for more in-person instruction through grassroots organizing and legal challenges.

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Years-old murder shook town; new arrest causes aftershocks

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — As days turned into years, Brett Woolley came to accept that his father’s murderer would never be found — and that his family’s private tragedy had become a Wild West legend, the kind of thing folks shared when they were a few too many drinks deep into the night.

Nearly 40 years ago, Dan Woolley was shot in the parking lot of a small-town bar. The shooter crossed the street to the town’s other tavern, ordered a drink and declared, “I just killed a man.”

And then he disappeared, leaving no trace.

Until a sunny summer morning last year, when word came that the man who shot Dan Woolley was living in Texas under an assumed name.

Brett didn’t want to hear it. “I didn’t want him to be found. I was fine with it like it was,” he said that November, voice choked. “It’s like it just happened yesterday, all over again.”

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Lights go out, roads dicey as wintry storm batters Northeast

WARREN, Mass. (AP) — The first big wintry storm of the season began dropping what forecasters say could be more than a foot of wet, heavy snow Saturday on parts of the Northeast, making travel treacherous and cutting off power to thousands.

Morning rain gave over to snow in the afternoon in New England. Accidents littered the Massachusetts Turnpike, where speed limits were reduced to 40 mph (64 kph). Massachusetts and New Hampshire utilities quickly reported thousands of customers without power.

Forecasters warned the windy nor'easter could result in near-blizzard conditions and could dump a foot (30 centimeters) of snow on suburban Boston. In Canada, southern Quebec and New Brunswick also expected a wallop.

Authorities in Connecticut urged drivers to be careful.

“Troopers are responding to accidents all over the state,” state police tweeted. “We ask motorists, if they can stay home please do. And if you have to go out please drive slow and ditch all distractions.”

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ER visits, long waits climb for kids in mental health crisis

When children and teens are overwhelmed with anxiety, depression or thoughts of self-harm, they often wait days in emergency rooms because there aren’t enough psychiatric beds.

The problem has only grown worse during the pandemic, reports from parents and professionals suggest.

With schools closed, routines disrupted and parents anxious over lost income or uncertain futures, children are shouldering new burdens many are unequipped to bear.

And with surging numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, bed space is even scarcer.

By early fall, many Massachusetts ERs were seeing about four times more children and teens in psychiatric crisis weekly than usual, said Ralph Buonopane, a mental health program director at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Boston.

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St. Nicholas visits Czech children while adapting to virus

PRAGUE (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has made life difficult for a lot of people in the Czech Republic, and that includes Saint Nicholas.

Every year on Dec. 5, Nicholas appears in costume on streets across the European country, joined by a winged angel and a masked devil rattling a metal chain.

The trio goes door-to-door visiting children and giving them candy and small gifts, if they have been well-behaved. If not, the devil threatens to put the girls and boys in his sack and take them directly to hell - unless the angel intervenes.

The Czech health minister insisted the traditional trio needed to follow the government’s infection-control measures just like everyone else, which meant wearing masks and practicing social distancing.

A new circus company in Prague offered another option on Saturday. The troupe set up an imaginary heaven and hell and invited families to come in cars to watch devils jumping, angels flying and Saint Nicholas waving.

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Fire guts historic church home to New York's Liberty Bell

NEW YORK (AP) — A historic church in lower Manhattan that houses New York's Liberty Bell and whose congregation dates to the city's earliest days was gutted by a massive fire early Saturday that sent flames shooting through the roof.

The Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village burned before dawn after a fire spread from a five-story vacant building adjacent to the church around 5 a.m. Flames shot from the roof and the church's stately front window glowed from the conflagration inside.

“We are devastated. We are gutted like our building is gutted; our hearts are crushed like our doors are crushed,” said the Rev. Jacqueline J. Lewis. "But we know how to be the church, and we know that God is God, yesterday, today and tomorrow.”

The fire department said in an Instagram post that there were four minor injuries to firefighters and that marshals were investigating the blaze.

Built in 1892, the church is home to the oldest congregation of the Collegiate Churches of New York, which date to the Dutch settlement of the island in the 1620s, according to the church's website.