California funeral homes run out of space as COVID-19 rages

LOS ANGELES (AP) — As communities across the country feel the pain of a surge in coronavirus cases, funeral homes in the hot spot of Southern California say they must turn away grieving families as they run out of space for the bodies piling up.

The head of the state funeral directors association says mortuaries are being inundated as the United States nears a grim tally of 350,000 COVID-19 deaths. More than 20 million people in the country have been infected, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

“I’ve been in the funeral industry for 40 years and never in my life did I think that this could happen, that I’d have to tell a family, ‘No, we can’t take your family member,’” said Magda Maldonado, owner of Continental Funeral Home in Los Angeles.

Continental is averaging about 30 body removals a day — six times its normal rate. Mortuary owners are calling one another to see whether anyone can handle overflow, and the answer is always the same: They’re full, too.

In order to keep up with the flood of bodies, Maldonado has rented extra 50-foot (15-meter) refrigerators for two of the four facilities she runs in LA and surrounding counties. Continental has also been delaying pickups at hospitals for a day or two while they deal with residential clients.

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After pardon, Blackwater guard defiant: ‘I acted correctly’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Evan Liberty was reading in the top bunk of his cell one evening late last month when a prison supervisor delivered news he had hoped for.

“He says, ‘Are you ready for this?'" Liberty recalled. "I said, ‘Uh, I’m not sure. What is going on?’ He said, ‘Presidential pardon. Pack your stuff.’"

Liberty is one of four former Blackwater contractors pardoned by President Donald Trump in one of Trump's final acts in office, freeing them from prison after a 2007 shooting rampage in Baghdad that killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians. Even for a president who has repeatedly exercised his pardon power on personal associates and political supporters, Trump's clemency for the contractors was met with especially intense condemnation, both in the United States and the Middle East.

Historically, presidential pardons have been reserved for nonviolent crimes, not manslaughter or murder, and the traditional process led by the Justice Department values acceptance of responsibility and remorse from those convicted of crimes. The Blackwater contractors meet none of that criteria. They were convicted in the killings of unarmed Iraqi women and children and have long been defiant in their assertions of innocence.

In an interview with The Associated Press, his first since being released from prison, Liberty, 38, again expressed little remorse for actions he says were defensible given the context.

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Watch out LA: Feds calculate riskiest, safest places in US

Spending her life in Los Angeles, Morgan Andersen knows natural disasters all too well. In college, an earthquake shook her home hard. Her grandfather was affected by recent wildfires in neighboring Orange County.

“It’s just that constant reminder, ‘Oh yeah, we live somewhere where there’s natural disasters and they can strike at any time,'" said the 29-year-old marketing executive.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has calculated the risk for every county in America for 18 types of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes and even tsunamis. And of the more than 3,000 counties, Los Angeles County has the highest ranking in the National Risk Index.

The way FEMA calculates the index spotlights places long known as danger spots, like Los Angeles, but some other places highlighted run counter to what most people would think. For instance, eastern cities such as New York and Philadelphia rank far higher on the risk for tornadoes than tornado alley stalwarts Oklahoma and Kansas.

And the county with the biggest coastal flood risk is one in Washington state that's not on the ocean, although its river is tidal.

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Biden flexes Georgia muscle alongside GOP in Senate races

President-elect Joe Biden is going all-in to help Democrats win two Senate runoffs in Georgia that will determine party control in the critical early years of his administration, a widespread effort that not long ago would have been unthinkable in a Republican-dominated state in the Deep South.

The push ahead of Tuesday's election comes with early voting making some Republicans nervous as President Donald Trump, who narrowly lost the state to Biden, continues to assert falsely that the Georgia election process is rigged.

Biden and his team have steered at least $18 million to help Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock try to unseat Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Biden’s campaign manager and incoming White House deputy chief of staff, Jen O’Malley Dillon, confirmed the figures Saturday, ahead of upcoming visits to the state by both Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. The money includes about $6 million in staff and voter data support and $12 million in fundraising for the two campaigns.

The president-elect and Harris also have recorded robocalls to blanket the state ahead of Tuesday. The pair has planned media interviews in markets across Georgia, including morning and late-afternoon “drive-time” radio on Election Day.

The effort reflects the high stakes, with Democrats needing a sweep to tilt the Senate in their favor, while Republicans need just one seat to keep their majority and force Biden to contend with divided government. Beyond what it means for Biden’s legislative prospects, the president-elect’s activity highlights the state’s evolution into a legitimate two-party battleground and what Biden’s team touts as his advantages as the first Democrat since 1992 to carry the state in a presidential election.

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3rd body found after landslide in Norway; 7 still missing

HELSINKI (AP) — Rescue teams searching for survivors four days after a landslide carried away homes in a Norwegian village found no signs of life Saturday amid the ruined buildings and debris.

Three bodies have been recovered but searchers are still looking for seven more people believed to be missing. The landslide in the village of Ask is the worst in modern Norwegian history and has shocked citizens in the Nordic nation.

Search teams patrolled with dogs as helicopters and drones with heat-detecting cameras flew amid harsh winter conditions over the ravaged hillside in Ask, a village of 5,000 people 25 kilometers (16 miles) northeast of Oslo.

Norwegian police pledged not to scale down the search even though a rescue team from neighboring Sweden has already returned home.

Local police chief Ida Melbo Oeystese said it may still be possible to find survivors in air pockets inside the destroyed buildings.

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More GOP lawmakers enlist in Trump effort to undo Biden win

WASHINGTON (AP) — A growing number of Republican lawmakers are joining President Donald Trump's extraordinary effort to overturn the election, pledging to reject the results when Congress meets next week to count the Electoral College votes and certify President-elect Joe Biden's win.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Saturday announced a coalition of 11 senators and senators-elect who have been enlisted for Trump's effort to subvert the will of American voters.

This follows the declaration from Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was the first to buck Senate leadership by saying he would join with House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies during Wednesday's joint session of Congress.

Trump's refusal to accept his defeat is tearing the party apart as Republicans are forced to make consequential choices that will set the contours of the post-Trump era. Hawley and Cruz are both among potential 2024 presidential contenders.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had urged his party not to try to overturn what nonpartisan election officials have concluded was a free and fair vote.

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UK judge to rule on US extradition for WikiLeaks' Assange

LONDON (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will find out Monday whether he can be extradited from the U.K. to the U.S. to face espionage charges over the publication of secret American military documents.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser is due to deliver her decision at London's Old Bailey courthouse at 10 a.m. Monday. If she grants the request, then Britain's home secretary, Priti Patel, would make the final decision.

Whichever side loses is expected to appeal, which could lead to years more legal wrangling.

However, there's a possibility that outside forces may come into play that could instantly end the decade-long saga.

Stella Moris, Assange’s partner and the mother of his two sons, has appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump via Twitter to grant a pardon to Assange before he leaves office on Jan. 20.

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In graying Italy, the old defy biases laid bare by pandemic

ROME (AP) — From his newsstand at the bottom of two hilly streets in Rome, Armando Alviti has been dispensing newspapers, magazines and good cheer to locals from before dawn till after dusk nearly every day for more than a half-century.

“Ciao, Armando,” his customers greet him as part of their daily routine. “Ciao, amore (love)” he calls back. Alviti chuckled as he recalled how, when he was a young boy, newspaper deliverers would drop off the day's stacks at his parents’ newsstand, sit him in the emptied baskets of their motorbikes and take him for a spin.

Since he turned 18, Alviti has operated the newsstand seven days a week, with a wool tweed cap to protect him from the Italian capital's winter dampness and a tabletop fan to cool him during its torrid summers. A mighty battle therefore ensued when the coronavirus reached Italy and his two grown sons insisted that Alviti, who is 71 and diabetic, stay home while they took turns juggling their own jobs to keep the newsstand open.

“They were afraid I would die. I know they love me crazy,” Alviti said.

Throughout the pandemic, health authorities around the world have stressed the need to protect the people most at risk of complications from COVID-19, a group which infection and mortality data quickly revealed included older adults. With 23% of its population age 65 or older, Italy has the world's second-oldest population, after Japan, with 28%.

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McConnell, Pelosi homes vandalized after $2,000 relief fails

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Vandals lashed out at the leaders of the U.S. House and Senate over the holiday weekend, blighting their homes with graffiti and in one case a pig's head as Congress failed to approve an increase in the amount of money being sent to individuals to help cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

Spray paint on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's door in Kentucky on Saturday read, “WERES MY MONEY.” “MITCH KILLS THE POOR" was scrawled over a window. A profanity directed at the Republican senator was painted under the mailbox.

At House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's home in San Francisco, someone spray-painted graffiti and left a pig’s head and fake blood on New Year’s Day, police said. The vandalism was reported around 2 a.m. Friday, a police statement said, and a special investigations unit is trying to determine who did it.

KGO-TV reported that graffiti found on the garage door of the Democratic leader’s home included the phrases “$2K,” “Cancel rent!” and “We want everything,” apparently referencing Democratic lawmakers’ failed efforts to increase the coronavirus relief checks from $600 to $2000.

The news station says security cameras surround the three-story brick home in the tony Pacific Heights neighborhood.

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Report: Talk show host Larry King in hospital with COVID-19

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former CNN talk show host Larry King has been hospitalized with COVID-19 for more than a week, the news channel reported Saturday.

Citing an unidentified person close to the family, CNN said the 87-year-old King is undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Hospital protocols have kept King's family members from visiting him.

The Peabody Award-winning broadcaster was among America's most prominent interviewers of celebrities, presidents and other newsmakers during a half-century career that included 25 years with a nightly show on CNN.

He has had medical issues in recent decades, including heart attacks and diagnoses of diabetes and lung cancer.