Tag Archives: Mayors

‘It may save your life’: Facing virus surge, more U.S. states mandate masks

By Andrew Hay

(Reuters) – California, North Carolina and a string of U.S. cities mandated or urged mandatory mask use on Thursday to get a grip on spiraling coronavirus cases as at least six states set daily records.

Putting aside concerns about individual rights and political unpopularity, U.S. governors and mayors said they were turning to compulsory face coverings to stop the virus running out of control as economies reopened.

On a day when Florida posted 3,207 new cases, its second daily record in a week, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings ordered obligatory mask use, telling residents of Orlando and other cities it would help them avoid a second shutdown.

California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered mask use in most places as the state for the second day in a row registered over 4,000 new cases.

As Arizona posted another daily case record, the Democratic mayors of Tucson and Phoenix respectively ordered and prepared to vote on mandatory face coverings after Republican Governor Doug Ducey bowed to pressure and let cities set mask rules.

“This piece of protection may even save your life,” North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper told reporters, adding that he was considering statewide obligatory mask use on a day when statewide COVID-19 hospitalizations set a new high.

A month after many governors reopened their economies, a growing number are adopting U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance that masks are essential to prevent community spread.

Resistance to face masks took on a partisan edge after President Donald Trump opposed them, telling the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Thursday that some people wear them to show opposition to him.

But with businesses ranging from Las Vegas casinos to hardware chains requiring their use, masks are becoming commonplace in the United States.

In Texas, the mayors of the state’s nine biggest cities asked Republican Governor Greg Abbott this week to grant them authority to set mask regulations.

As Oklahoma reported its second day of record coronavirus cases, the Tulsa arena hosting a Trump rally on Saturday said it would encourage all attendees to remain masked throughout the event and issue staff with personal protective gear.

Trump has pushed ahead with the rally – which would be the biggest U.S. indoor social gathering in three months – even as health experts worry assembling thousands of people inside an arena – particularly if many are not wearing masks – could turn it into a virus “super-spreader event.”

Nationwide, COVID-19 cases rose by 26,357 on Thursday to about 2.2 million, according to a Reuters tally, marking the biggest daily increase in nearly two weeks. There have been 118,377 U.S. deaths, an increase of 684 on Thursday.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Cañon, New Mexico; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and David Schwartz in Phoenix; Editing by Peter Cooney)

U.S. governors want say on Trump’s infrastructure plan

President Donald Trump

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. governors are flagging hundreds of “shovel-ready” projects they regard as high-priority for President Donald Trump’s plan to fix the nation’s infrastructure.

Scott Pattison, executive director of the bipartisan National Governor’s Association, said on Monday his group, at the request of the White House, has assembled a list of 300 projects costing billions of dollars from 43 states and territories, with more expected to come.

“The good part from a bipartisan standpoint is there seems to be full consensus that we have a lot of infrastructure problems in the U.S., a lot of maintenance issues, also things that need building,” he said in an interview.

In his inaugural address Friday, the Republican president said the nation’s infrastructure “has fallen into disrepair and decay.”

“We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation,” Trump said.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Monday told reporters that “infrastructure continues to be a huge priority.”

The American Society of Civil Engineers’ infrastructure report card has estimated the United States needs to invest $3.6 trillion by 2020.

Pattison said while it was still early in the process, disagreements are likely over how to fund infrastructure. He added that governors want “all the tools” to be made available, including cash, municipal bonds, public-private partnerships and federal matching programs.

“One of the biggest issues that has to be faced is that the gas tax has been primarily the way in which we funded a lot of our transportation projects, and that’s a declining revenue source,” Pattison said.

Governors also want to make sure their project priorities are immune from congressional earmarking, Pattison said, adding that states have developed “robust” prioritization programs.

(Reporting by Karen Pierog; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Turkey removes two dozen elected mayors in Kurdish militant crackdown

Turkey protest

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkey appointed new administrators in two dozen Kurdish-run municipalities on Sunday after removing their elected mayors over suspected links to militants, triggering pockets of protest in its volatile southeastern region bordering Syria and Iraq.

Police fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse demonstrators outside local government buildings in Suruc on the Syrian border as new administrators took over, security sources said. There were smaller protests elsewhere in the town.

There were also disturbances in the main regional city of Diyarbarkir and in Hakkari province near the Iraqi border, where police entered the municipality building and unfurled a large red Turkish flag, taking down the white local government flags that had previously flown.

President Tayyip Erdogan said this week the campaign against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, who have waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, was now Turkey’s largest ever. The removal of civil servants linked to them was a key part of the fight.

The 24 municipalities had been run by the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest in parliament, which denies direct links to the militants. It decried the move as an “administrative coup”.

“No democratic state can or will allow mayors and MPs to use municipality resources to finance terrorist organisations,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Twitter. “Being an elected official isn’t a licence to commit crimes.”

Turkey’s battle against the PKK resumed with a new intensity after a ceasefire collapsed last year and with attempts by Kurdish groups in Syria’s war to carve out an autonomous Kurdish enclave on Turkey’s border.

In a message to mark the Muslim Eid al Adha holiday, Erdogan said the PKK had been trying to step up attacks since a failed military coup in July and that they aimed to disrupt Turkish military operations in Syria.

The U.S. embassy said it was concerned by reports of clashes in the southeast and that while it supported Turkey’s right to combat terrorism, it was important to respect the right to peaceful protest.

“We hope that any appointment of trustees will be temporary and that local citizens will soon be permitted to choose new local officials in accordance with Turkish law,” it said.

WESTERN CONCERN

The crackdown comes as Ankara also pushes ahead with a purge of tens of thousands of supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Turkey of orchestrating the attempted coup in July. Gulen denies any involvement.

The mayors of four other municipalities, three from the ruling AK Party and one from the nationalist MHP opposition, were also replaced over alleged links to what the authorities call the “Gulen Terror Organisation”, or FETO.

The interior ministry said the 28 mayors, 12 of whom are formally under arrest, were under investigation for providing “assistance and support” to the PKK and to Gulen’s organization.

Turkey has sacked or suspended more than 100,000 people since the failed coup. At least 40,000 people have been detained on suspicion of links to Gulen’s network.

The crackdown has raised concern from rights groups and Western allies who fear Erdogan is using the failed coup as pretext to curtail all dissent, and intensify his actions against suspected Kurdish militant sympathizers.

Turkish officials say the moves are justified by the extent of the threat to the state.

The HDP, which says it promotes a negotiated end to the PKK insurgency, said it did not recognize the legitimacy of the mayors’ removal.

“This illegal and arbitrary stance will result in the deepening of current problems in Kurdish cities, and the Kurdish issue becoming unresolvable,” it said in a statement.

Tensions in the southeast had already been heightened since Turkey launched a military incursion into Syria two and half weeks ago dubbed “Operation Euphrates Shield”.

The operation aims to push Islamic State fighters back from the border and prevent Kurdish militia fighters seizing ground in their wake. Turkey views the Kurdish militia as an extension of the PKK and fears that Kurdish gains there will fuel separatist sentiment on its own soil.

(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Daren Butler in Istanbul, Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Writing by Nick Tattersall)