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Top Republicans bullish on 2022 prospects after Virginia win
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Fresh off a strong showing in last week's elections, some of the nation's leading Republicans expressed newfound confidence this weekend that they were well positioned to retake control of Congress next year and ultimately win back the White House.
Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual leadership meeting in Las Vegas, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a potential presidential contender in 2024, boasted that Democrats were "freaking out" after losing the Virginia governor's race and nearly falling short in New Jersey. Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, called Tuesday's strong showing "a tsunami" and a "precursor of really great things to come in 2022."
But beneath the bravado coursing through the grand Palazzo ballroom at the Venetian Resort, the GOP was still navigating around the shadow of Donald Trump, the former president who plans to play a major role in next year's midterms and may again run for the White House in 2024. Virtually everyone who addressed the crowd praised Trump, who also spoke by video. But for the first time since losing the 2020 election, he seemed relegated to the background as others encouraged the party to think about its future.
The Republican strength in Virginia and New Jersey last week was fueled by candidates who deliberately kept Trump at arm's length and successfully turned out rural conservatives who make up the former president's base, while also appealing to suburban voters who had abandoned the party in recent years. That could provide a model for GOP success in future elections.
But Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who may run for president again in 2024, warned that would only happen if GOP leaders, including Trump, focus on the future instead of re-litigating the past, including the former president's lie that last year's election was stolen.
Mourning starts as Houston
officials probe concert deaths
HOUSTON (AP) -- Investigators Sunday worked to determine how eight people died in a crush of fans at a Houston music festival, as families mourned the dead and concertgoers recounted the horror and confusion of being trapped in the crowd.
Authorities planned to use videos, witness interviews and a review of concert procedures to figure out what went wrong Friday night during a performance by rapper Travis Scott. The tragedy unfolded when the crowd rushed the stage, squeezing people so tightly they couldn't breathe.
Billy Nasser, 24, who had traveled from Indianapolis to attend the concert, said about 15 minutes into Scott's set, things got "really crazy" and people began crushing one another. He said he "was picking people up and trying to drag them out."
Nasser said he found a concertgoer on the ground.
"I picked him up. People were stepping on him. People were like stomping, and I picked his head up and I looked at his eyes, and his eyes were just white, rolled back to the back of his head," he said.
Foreign citizens seek US-approved shots as travel resumes
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) -- As COVID-19 ravaged Hungary in April, Budapest resident Akos Sipos received his second vaccine dose, believing he was doing the right thing for his own health and to help end the pandemic.
But Sipos, 46, soon discovered that the vaccine he received, Russia's Sputnik V, disqualified him from traveling to a number of other countries where it hadn't been approved. The nations include the United States, which is pushing forward with a new air travel policy that will make Sipos and many like him ineligible to enter.
"I thought it's better to get Sputnik today than a Western vaccine at some uncertain future time," Sipos, who works as a search engine optimization specialist, said of his initial decision to receive the jab. "But I couldn't have known at that time that I wouldn't be able to travel with Sputnik."
Starting Monday, the United States plans to reopen to foreign travelers who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. But there's a catch: non-immigrant adults need to have received vaccines authorized by the Food and Drug Administration or which received an emergency use listing from the World Health Organization.
That leaves many hopeful travelers across the globe who have taken full courses of vaccines widely used in other parts of the world -- Sputnik V and the China-produced CanSino jab, in particular -- scrambling to get reinoculated with shots approved by U.S. authorities.
The magic 1.5: What's behind
climate talks' key elusive goal
Glasgow, Scotland (AP) -- One phrase, really just a number, dominates climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland: The magic and elusive 1.5.
That stands for the international goal of trying to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. It's a somewhat confusing number in some ways that wasn't a major part of negotiations just seven years ago and was a political suggestion that later proved to be incredibly important scientifically.
Stopping warming at 1.5 or so can avoid or at least lessen some of the most catastrophic future climate change harms and for some people is a life-or-death matter, scientists have found in many reports.
The 1.5 figure now it is the "overarching objective" of the Glasgow climate talks, called COP26, conference President Alok Sharma said on the first day of the conference. Then on Saturday he said the conference, which takes a break on Sunday, was still trying "to keep 1.5 alive."
For protesters and activists, the phrase is "1.5 to stay alive."
'Nimblewill Nomad,' 83, is oldest
to hike Appalachian Trail
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- An 83-year-old from Alabama started walking when he retired more than a quarter-century ago -- and never stopped.
M.J. "Sunny" Eberhart strode into the record books Sunday as the oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail.
Eberhart, known by the trail name Nimblewill Nomad, acknowledged that despite having tens of thousands of miles under his belt, the trail was tough going at his age, leading to quite a few spills on slippery rocks.
"I've a got a couple of skid marks on me, but I'm OK," he said in a recent interview. "You've got to have an incredible resolve to do this."
He hiked the trail out of order, in sections, to take advantage of optimal weather, and had already completed northern sections including Maine's Mount Katahdin. He completed his final section in western Massachusetts, in the town of Dalton, in the same year in which a 5-year-old became among the youngest to complete the feat.
AP FACT CHECK: Biden hypes
$1T bill impact on electric cars
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Boasting about his $1 trillion infrastructure package, President Joe Biden overstated its reach by claiming it would result in 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations and meet his pledge to nudge half of U.S. drivers into EVs by decade's end.
The measure receiving final congressional passage late Friday cuts in half the money that Biden had said was needed for the charging stations. Money could start flowing to the states within a month after the bill is signed, although construction can't begin until the Transportation Department approves their spending plans.
While a step forward, automakers have made clear they won't meet White House targets that half of all new car sales be electric by 2030 based on federal investment in that legislation alone.
A look at the claims vs. the facts:
BIDEN: "We're going to build out the first-ever national network of charging stations all across the country -- over 500,000 of them. … So, you'll be able to go across the whole darn country, from East Coast to West Coast, just like you'd stop at a gas station now. These charging stations will be available." -- remarks Saturday.
Tension rises in Iraq after
failed bid to assassinate PM
BAGHDAD (AP) -- The failed assassination attempt against Iraq's prime minister at his residence on Sunday has ratcheted up tensions following last month's parliamentary elections, in which the Iran-backed militias were the biggest losers.
Helicopters circled in the Baghdad skies throughout the day, while troops and patrols deployed around Baghdad and near the capital's fortified Green Zone, where the overnight attack occurred.
Supporters of the Iran-backed militias held their ground in a protest camp outside the Green Zone to demand a vote recount. Leaders of the Iran-backed factions converged for the second day on a funeral tent to mourn a protester killed Friday in clashes with security. Many of the faction leaders blame the prime minister for the violence.
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi suffered a light cut and appeared in a televised speech soon after the attack by armed drones on his residence. He appeared calm and composed, seated behind a desk in a white shirt and what appeared to be a bandage around his left wrist.
Seven of his security guards were wounded in the attack by at least two armed drones, according to two Iraqi officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give official statements.
Average US price of gas jumps
by 5 cents over past 2 weeks
CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) -- The average U.S. price of regular-grade gasoline jumped by 5 cents over the past two weeks, to $3.49 per gallon.
The price at the pump is $1.30 higher than a year ago.
Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg Survey said Sunday the rise comes as the cost of crude oil and ethanol surges.
Nationwide, the highest average price for regular-grade gas is in the San Francisco Bay Area, at $4.77 per gallon. The lowest average is in Houston, at $2.98 per gallon.
According to the survey, the average price of diesel jumped 8 cents to $3.67 a gallon. That price is also $1.30 higher than a year ago.
High wind delays SpaceX crew homecoming after 6 months aloft
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- High wind off the Florida coast has prompted SpaceX to delay the return of four space station astronauts in orbit since spring.
The U.S., French and Japanese astronauts were supposed to leave the International Space Station on Sunday, with their capsule splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday morning. But with gusts exceeding safety limits, SpaceX bumped the departure to Monday afternoon, with a nighttime return to conclude their six-month mission.
The good news is that their trip home will now last eight hours, less than half as long as before. The toilet in their capsule is broken, and so the four will need to rely on diapers while flying home.
SpaceX still is aiming for a Wednesday night launch, at the earliest, of their replacements. This flight also has been delayed by bad weather, as well as an astronaut's undisclosed medical issue. The issue, described as minor, should be resolved by launch time, officials said.
Last week, SpaceX and NASA flipped the order of the launch and landing because of the deteriorating weather and the looming deadline to get the capsule back from the space station. SpaceX capsules are certified for a maximum 210 days in orbit, and the one up there now is approaching 200 days.
Bomb threats investigated
at Brown, Columbia, Cornell
Ithaca, N.Y. (AP) -- Bomb threats at three Ivy League college campuses caused evacuations and police investigations Sunday, with at least one school saying the threat there was unfounded.
Cornell, Columbia and Brown universities alerted students to the threats. Authorities at Columbia said the campus buildings had been cleared Sunday evening.
In Ithaca, New York, Cornell police cordoned off the center of campus on Sunday after receiving a call that bombs were placed in four buildings.
In New York City, Columbia University police issued a campus-wide emergency alert after receiving bomb threats at university buildings at about 2:30 p.m. The university deemed the threats not credible shortly before 5 p.m.
Brown University officials in Providence, Rhode Island, sent a text alert to students that said police were investigating "multiple buildings on campus involving a bomb threat."
The threats came two days after a bomb threat at Yale University forced the evacuation of several buildings as well as nearby businesses in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale's campus resumed normal activities Friday evening, roughly five hours after the call was received.
'Eternals' opens with $71M
but audience response is mixed
NEW YORK (AP) -- "Eternals," one of Marvel's most ambitious efforts to expand its superhero universe, arrived in theaters with about $71 million in ticket sales over the weekend, according to studio estimates.
By most studios' box-office standards, the opening was enviable. Only three other films have debuted better during the pandemic: "Black Widow" ($80.3 million), "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" ($75.3 million) and "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" ($90 million). But for Marvel's well-oiled blockbuster machine, the "Eternals" launch in some ways constituted a bump in the road in an unparalleled 26-film streak.
Going into the weekend, forecasts had been only slightly higher at about $75 million domestically. More concerning for the Walt Disney Co. was the mixed audience response to Chloe Zhao's 157-minute movie about an immortal race of superheroes. The film is the first in the Marvel "cinematic universe" to rank "rotten" in Rotten Tomatoes' aggregate critic score, with only 47% of reviews considered positive. Audiences also gave it a lower grade -- a "B" CinemaScore -- than any previous MCU entry.
But from the start, "Eternals" was a less charted direction for Marvel. By enlisting Zhao, whose "Nomadland" earlier this year won best picture and best director at the Academy Awards, the comic-book factory tapped a lauded filmmaker more associated with arthouse realism than computer-generated spectacle. The story, too, introduces a lesser-known alien class of superheroes, whose existence spans all of human history. With a teeming, diverse cast including Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie and Kumail Nanjiani, "Eternals" dared numerous introductions -- including the MCU's first deaf superhero in Lauren Ridloff and the first superhero sex scene -- not tried before in the franchise.
Navajo Nation President Nez
signs ban on indoor smoking
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) -- The leader of the largest Native American reservation in the U.S. signed legislation Saturday to ban indoor smoking in many locations, including the tribe's casinos.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez called the ban a "monumental achievement and bold step in the right direction to promote healthy living among our Navajo people.
"It is a fundamental right to protect our Navajo people's right to breathe clean air," he said in a statement.
Tribal lawmakers approved the bill in October that prohibits the use of cigarettes, chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes and other commercial products in public buildings and workspaces, including a 25-foot buffer outdoors.
The ban will not apply to the ceremonial use of tobacco or in people's homes unless they are being used as day care centers, adult care centers or as business offices.
Nez had until Sunday evening to act on the legislation.
Enactment of the ban followed 13 years of work by a coalition to educate the public on the dangers of secondhand smoke.
Advocates saw an opportunity to renew the push during the coronavirus pandemic while masks are required and questions remain about the long-term effects of the virus.
Comments submitted to the Navajo Nation Council on the measure overwhelmingly supported it. A few cited the potential of lost revenue for the tribal gambling enterprise that unsuccessfully sought to carve out an exemption from the ban.
Smoking had been prohibited at the tribe's four casinos -- three in New Mexico and one east of Flagstaff -- under COVID-19 safety measures, but it wasn't permanent until Nez signed the legislation Saturday.
The Tribal Council approved a ban on smoking and chewing tobacco in public places in 2008, but then-President Joe Shirley Jr. vetoed it, partially because he was concerned about gambling revenue. An override effort fell short of the votes it needed.
Shirley's successor, Ben Shelly, also vetoed legislation that would have banned smoking in public places but not at the tribe's casinos until their loans were paid off. He issued an order to ban smoking within executive branch offices he oversaw. The order didn't apply broadly across the 27,000 square-mile reservation that extends into Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.