AP News in Brief at 12:03 am EDT | Nation & World | dailyunion.com – Daily Union

The destructive Bootleg Fire just north of the California border grew to more than 476 square miles (1,210 square kilometers), an area about the size of Los Angeles.

Erratic winds fed the blaze, creating dangerous conditions for firefighters, said John Flannigan, an operations section chief on the 2,000-person force battling the flames.

“Weather is really against us,” he said. “It’s going to be dry and air is going to be unstable.”

Authorities expanded evacuations that now affect some 2,000 residents of a largely rural area of lakes and wildlife refuges. The blaze, which was 22% contained, has burned at least 67 homes and 100 outbuildings while threatening thousands more.

Vaccine inequity: Inside the cutthroat race to secure doses

PARIS (AP) — No one disputes that the world is unfair. But no one expected a vaccine gap between the global rich and poor that was this bad, this far into the pandemic.

Inequity is everywhere: Inoculations go begging in the United States while Haiti, a short plane ride away, received its first delivery July 15 after months of promises — 500,000 doses for a population over 11 million. Canada has procured more than 10 doses for every resident; Sierra Leone’s vaccination rate just cracked 1% on June 20.

It’s like a famine in which “the richest guys grab the baker,” said Strive Masiyiwa, the African Union’s envoy for vaccine acquisition.

In fact, European and American officials deeply involved in bankrolling and distributing the vaccines against coronavirus have told The Associated Press there was no thought of how to handle the situation globally. Instead, they jostled for their own domestic use.

But there are more specific reasons why vaccines have and have not reached the haves and have-nots.

Senator: Bipartisan infrastructure bill loses IRS provision

WASHINGTON (AP) — A proposal to strengthen IRS enforcement to crack down on tax scofflaws and help fund a nearly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure spending bill is officially off the table, Republican Sen. Rob Portman said Sunday.

Portman, who is involved in negotiating the bill, cited “pushback” from fellow Republican lawmakers who dislike the idea of expanding the reach of the IRS, which they have accused over the years of unfairly targeting conservatives. He said another reason the IRS provision was shelved is that Democrats are including a more robust enforcement plan in a separate $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill that they intend to pass through the Senate using special budget rules and without Republican votes.

“That created quite a problem because the general agreement is that this is the bipartisan, negotiated infrastructure package and that we will stick with that,” the Ohio senator said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Portman’s announcement that the IRS provision had been removed underscores the difficulty facing the bipartisan group of Republican and Democratic senators in finding mutually agreeable ways to pay for billions of dollars of new spending their White House-backed plan calls for.

Portman said meetings were planned Sunday to discuss alternatives to the IRS provision, which had been estimated to bring in an estimated $100 billion over 10 years. The proposal to go after taxpayers who skip out on income taxes initially had potential bipartisan appeal, but outside groups came forward to lambaste it as a way to enable the IRS to snoop around Americans’ personal finances.

Zero risk? Virus cases test Olympic organizers’ assurances

TOKYO (AP) — Two South African soccer players became the first athletes inside the Olympic Village to test positive for COVID-19, and other cases connected to the Tokyo Games were also confirmed Sunday, highlighting the herculean task organizers face to keep the virus contained while the world’s biggest sports event plays out.

The positive tests came as some of the 11,000 athletes and thousands more team officials expected from across the globe began arriving, having traveled through a pandemic to get to Tokyo.

They’ll all now live in close quarters in the Olympic Village on Tokyo Bay over the next three weeks.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said last week there was “zero” risk of athletes passing on the virus to Japanese or other residents of the village. But that bold statement was already being tested.

The Olympics, which were postponed for a year because of the pandemic, are set to officially open Friday and run until Aug. 8.

Number of infected Texas lawmakers who fled state rises to 5

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two more Texas lawmakers who left their state to hobble efforts to pass new voting restrictions have tested positive for the coronavirus, raising to five the number of infected people in the delegation.

State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio said in a statement Sunday that he had tested positive. “I am quarantining until I test negative, and I am grateful to be only experiencing extremely mild symptoms,” he said.

A person familiar with the delegation said the number of infected members had risen to five. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter and requested anonymity.

More than 50 Texas lawmakers traveled to Washington on Monday aboard a private charter flight. A caucus official has said all had been vaccinated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says “breakthrough” infections — vaccinated people becoming infected — are rare.

After a photo showed them maskless on the plane, Republicans and others criticized the lawmakers for traveling without masks. But federal pandemic guidelines don’t require masks to be worn on private aircraft.

With pandemic worsening in US, surgeon general worried

The U.S. surgeon general said Sunday that he’s concerned about what lies ahead with cases of COVID-19 increasing in every state, millions still unvaccinated and a highly contagious virus variant spreading rapidly.

Noting that nearly all coronavirus deaths now are among the tens of millions of people who haven’t received shots, despite widespread vaccine availability, Dr. Vivek Murthy painted an unsettling picture of what the future could hold.

“I am worried about what is to come because we are seeing increasing cases among the unvaccinated in particular. And while, if you are vaccinated, you are very well protected against hospitalization and death, unfortunately that is not true if you are not vaccinated,” Murthy said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

U.S. cases of COVID-19 last week increased by 17,000 nationwide over a 14-day period for the first time since late fall, and an increase in death historically follows a spike in illness. Much of the worsening problem is being driven by the delta variant first identified in India, that has since hit the United Kingdom and other countries, said Murthy.

While U.S. case numbers and hospitalizations are still far below levels from the worst of the pandemic early this year, Murthy said the worsening situation shows the need to convince more people to get inoculations.

In Trump’s Jan. 6 recast, attackers become martyrs, heroes

WASHINGTON (AP) — A cocktail of propaganda, conspiracy theory and disinformation — of the kind intoxicating to the masses in the darkest turns of history — is fueling delusion over the agonies of Jan. 6.

Hate is “love.” Violence is “peace.” The pro-Donald Trump attackers are patriots.

Months after the then-president’s supporters stormed the Capitol that winter day, Trump and his acolytes are taking this revisionism to a new and dangerous place — one of martyrs and warlike heroes, and of revenge. It’s a place where cries of “blue lives matter” have transformed into shouts of “f— the blue.”

The fact inversion about the siege is the latest in Trump’s contorted oeuvre of the “big lie” compendium, the most specious of which is that the election was stolen from him, when it was not.

It is rooted in the formula of potent propaganda through the ages: Say it loud, say it often, say it with the heft of political power behind you, and people will believe. Once spread by pamphlets, posters and word of mouth, now spread by swipe of finger, the result is the same: a passionate, unquestioning following.

Merkel tours ‘surreal’ flood scene, vows aid, climate action

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel surveyed what she called a “surreal, ghostly” scene in a devastated village on Sunday, pledging quick financial aid and a redoubled political focus on curbing climate change as the death toll from floods in Western Europe climbed above 180.

Merkel toured Schuld, a village on a tight curve of the Ahr River in western Germany where many buildings were damaged or destroyed by rapidly rising floodwaters Wednesday night.

Although the mayor of Schuld said no one was killed or injured there, many other places weren’t so lucky. The death toll in the Ahrweiler area, where Schuld is located, stood at 112. Authorities said people are still missing and they fear the toll may still rise.

In neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany’s most populous, 46 people were killed, including four firefighters. Belgium confirmed 31 deaths.

Merkel said she came away from Schuld, still partly strewn with rubble and mud in bright sunshine, with “a real picture of, I must say, the surreal, ghostly situation.”

Who’s in? California recall candidate list draws confusion

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The official list of who’s running in California’s recall election of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom remained unsettled Sunday, with conservative talk radio host Larry Elder maintaining he should be included and state officials giving no details as to why he wasn’t.

Secretary of State spokeswoman Jenna Dresner said all candidates who didn’t qualify were told why, but a spokesperson for Elder’s campaign said they did not receive any notification. The spokesperson, Ying Ma, said Elder submitted voter signatures from three counties and the campaign assumed the state hadn’t finished adding them together. Candidates must pay a nearly $4,200 filing fee or submit 7,000 signatures.

Though Ma said the campaign expected the issue to be resolved Monday, Dresner said “any changes to the list at this point would be through court order.”

When Elder announced his candidacy July 12, he instantly became one of the most recognizable Republicans in the field given his years on talk radio and appearances on Fox News and was viewed as a candidate who could further energize GOP voters. Though Elder is likely to excite many voters, most Republicans are unlikely to stay home if he’s not on the list, said Jack Pitney, a professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College.

“I think Republicans are going to show up because they hate Newsom, not because they are particular fans of any of the replacement candidates,” Pitney said.

Padres, Nats recall harrowing scene after shots outside park

When the gunshots started to echo all around Nationals Park, San Diego Padres star shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. quickly thought about the team’s family members and friends in the seats.

Tatis bolted from the bench down the left field line Saturday night, helped open a gate to the stands and began ushering a group back to the dugout for shelter.

“Our family, loved ones, little kids. Feel like somebody needed to go get them,” Tatis said Sunday. “I feel like the safest place was the clubhouse and we were trying to get our families into a safe place.”

The top half of the sixth inning in the game between the Padres and Washington Nationals had just ended in front of about 33,000 fans when several shots were heard on South Capitol Street, just outside the third-base side of the stadium.

But in the moment, no one knew whether the rapid series of shots was coming from inside the ballpark or beyond.