AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST

Top Republican says Trump committed ‘impeachable offences’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats’ momentum for a fresh drive to quickly impeach outgoing President Donald Trump gained support Saturday, and a top Republican said the president’s role in the deadly riot at the Capitol by a violent mob of Trump supporters was worthy of rebuke.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said he believed Trump had committed “impeachable offences.” But he did not explicitly say whether he would vote to remove the president from office at the conclusion of a Senate trial if the House sent over articles of impeachment.

“I don’t know what they are going to send over and one of the things that I’m concerned about, frankly, is whether the House would completely politicize something,” Toomey said Saturday on Fox News Channel, speaking of the Democratic-controlled House.

“I do think the president committed impeachable offences, but I don’t know what is going to land on the Senate floor, if anything,” Toomey said.

Late Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to her Democratic colleagues reiterating that Trump must be held accountable — but stopped short of committing to an impeachment vote. Still, she told her caucus, “I urge you to be prepared to return to Washington this week.”

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Once again, job losses fall unequally across the US economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ten months into America’s viral outbreak, low-income workers are still bearing the brunt of job losses — an unusual and harsh feature of the pandemic recession that flattened the economy last spring.

In December, the nation shed jobs for the first time since April. Once again, the layoffs were heavily concentrated in the industries that have suffered most because they involve the kind of face-to-face contact that is now nearly impossible: Restaurants, bars and hotels, theatres, sports arenas and concert halls.

With the virus transforming consumer spending habits, economists believe some portion of these service jobs won’t return even after the economy has regained its footing. That trend will likely further widen the economic inequalities that have left millions of families unable to buy food or pay rent.

Typically in a recession, layoffs strike a broad array of industries — both those that employ higher- and middle-income workers and those with lower-paid staff — as anxious consumers slash spending. Economists had worried that the same trend would emerge this time.

Instead, much of the rest of the economy is healing, if slowly and fitfully. Factories, while not fully recovered, are cranking out goods and have added jobs every month since May. Home sales have soared 26% from a year ago, fueled by affluent people able to work from home who are looking for more space. That trend has, in turn, bolstered higher-paying jobs in banking, insurance and real estate.

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No surprise: Trump left many clues he wouldn’t go quietly

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump left plenty of clues he’d try to burn the place down on his way out the door.

The clues spread over a lifetime of refusing to acknowledge defeat. They spanned a presidency marked by raw, angry rhetoric, puffed-up conspiracy theories and a kind of fellowship with “patriots” drawn from the seething ranks of right-wing extremists. The clues piled on at light speed when Trump lost the election and wouldn’t admit it.

The culmination of all that came Wednesday when Trump supporters, exhorted by the president to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” against a “stolen” election, overran and occupied the building in an explosive confrontation that left a Capitol Police officer and four others dead.

The mob went there so emboldened by Trump’s send-off at a rally that his partisans live-streamed themselves trashing the place. Trump, they figured, had their back.

This was, after all, the president who had responded to a right-wing plot to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor last year with the comment: “Maybe it was a problem. Maybe it wasn’t.”

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Indonesian divers find parts of plane wreckage in Java Sea

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian divers on Sunday located parts of the wreckage of a Boeing 737-500 at a depth of 23 metres (75 feet) in the Java Sea, a day after the aircraft with 62 people onboard crashed shortly after takeoff from Jakarta.

“We received reports from the diver team that the visibility in the water is good and clear, allowing the discovery of some parts of the plane,” Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto said in a statement. “We are sure that is the point where the plane crashed.”

He said the objects included broken pieces of fuselage with aircraft registration parts.

Earlier, rescuers pulled out body parts, pieces of clothing and scraps of metal from the surface.

“Hopefully until this afternoon the current conditions and the view under the sea are still good so that we can continue the search,” he said.

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Squelched by Twitter, Trump seeks new online megaphone

BOSTON (AP) — One Twitter wag joked about lights flickering on and off at the White House being Donald Trump signalling to his followers in Morse code after Twitter and Facebook squelched the president for inciting rebellion.

Though deprived of his big online megaphones, Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach. The far right-friendly Parler may be the leading candidate, though Google and Apple have both removed it from their app stores and Amazon decided to boot it off its web hosting service. That could knock it offline for a week, Parler’s CEO said.

Trump may launch his own platform. But that won’t happen overnight, and free speech experts anticipate growing pressure on all social media platforms to curb incendiary speech as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol by a Trump-incited mob.

Twitter ended Trump’s nearly 12-year run on Friday. In shuttering his account it cited a tweet to his 89 million followers that he planned to skip President-elect Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration that it said gave rioters license to converge on Washington once again.

Facebook and Instagram have suspended Trump at least until Inauguration Day. Twitch and Snapchat also have disabled Trump’s accounts, while Shopify took down online stores affiliated with the president and Reddit removed a Trump subgroup. Twitter also banned Trump loyalists including former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a sweeping purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory and the Capitol insurrection. Some had hundreds of thousands of followers.

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Trump pressured Georgia to ‘find the fraud’ in earlier call

ATLANTA (AP) — While election officials in Georgia were verifying signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in one metro-Atlanta county, President Donald Trump pressed a lead investigator to “find the fraud” and said it would make the investigator a national hero.

The December call, described by a person familiar with it who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to describe the sensitive nature of the discussion, is yet another link in the chain of the extraordinary pressure campaign waged by Trump on state officials as he sought to overturn the results of the November election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

It is one of at least three phone calls, held over the course of a month between early December and early January, where Trump sought help from high-level Georgia officials in subverting the election — only to be rebuffed each time. Trump lost to Biden in Georgia by 11,779 votes.

The call to the investigator preceded Trump’s Jan. 2 call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger where he asked election officials to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win in the state. It occurred as election officials were conducting an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in Cobb County.

The audit, which reviewed more than 15,000 signatures, found no cases of fraud. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation helped conduct the signature audit.

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VIRUS TODAY: California in dire need of more medical workers

Here’s what’s happening Saturday with the pandemic in the U.S.:

— California desperately needs more medical workers at facilities swamped by coronavirus patients, and almost no help is coming from a volunteer program that Gov. Gavin Newsom created at the start of the pandemic. An army of 95,000 initially raised their hands, but just 14 are now working in the field. Newsom said very few volunteers met qualifications for the California Health Corps, and only a tiny sliver have the high-level experience needed to help with the most serious virus cases. Other states have faced similar difficulties making volunteer programs work. California health authorities reported a record high of 695 coronavirus deaths Saturday, raising the state’s death toll since the start of the pandemic to 29,233.

— Health officials in Anchorage, Alaska, say appointments for residents eager to receive their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine filled up in a matter of hours, leading to frustration for people still trying to sign up. Anchorage Health Department Director Heather Harris told KTUU-TV that all 1,800 available time slots were reserved by residents within a four-hour period Thursday. Clinics are not accepting walk-ins. Residents 65 and older are now able to receive the vaccine; about 33,000 people fall in that category. Harris said Anchorage is expecting about 14,600 doses this month and vaccination clinics were planned throughout the weekend and early next week.

— An Oklahoma judge has extended a temporary restraining order allowing bars and restaurants across Oklahoma to stay open past an 11 p.m. curfew Gov. Kevin Stitt issued in November in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. District Judge Susan Stallings heard arguments in the case Friday and extended the Dec. 29 order while she considers ruling in a lawsuit by bar owners who argue the governor doesn’t have legal authority to impose the curfew, according to court records. Attorneys for the governor say state law gives Stitt “broad and flexible authority needed” to combat the virus’ spread. On Saturday, Oklahoma had the sixth most new cases per capita in the nation with 1,218.16 per 100,000 residents, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

THE NUMBERS: According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily new deaths in the U.S. rose over the past two weeks, going from 2,368.1 on Dec. 25 to 2,982.7 on Friday.

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Pompeo voids restrictions on diplomatic contacts with Taiwan

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Saturday that the State Department is voiding longstanding restrictions on how U.S. diplomats and others have contact with their counterparts in Taiwan, another move that is expected to upset China as the Trump administration winds to an end.

The Trump administration has sought to strengthen bilateral relations with Taiwan. It announced Thursday that U.N Ambassador Kelly Craft would go to Taiwan, a move that sparked sharp criticism from Beijing and a warning that the U.S. would pay a heavy price. In August, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar became the first Cabinet member to visit Taiwan since 2014.

Pompeo said that the State Department has created complex restrictions when it comes to contacts between the two parties. He said those actions were taken to appease the Communist regime in Beijing.

“No more,” Pompeo declared in a statement. “Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions.”

The Chinese government maintains that mainland China and Taiwan are parts of “one China.” China has been stepping up its threats to bring the self-governing island under its control by military force with frequent war games and aerial patrols. It has been using its diplomatic clout to stop Taiwan from joining any organizations that require statehood for membership.

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‘Brian did his job’: Family remembers fallen Capitol officer

SOUTH RIVER, N.J. (AP) — From his early days growing up in a New Jersey hamlet, Brian Sicknick wanted to be a police officer.

He enlisted in the National Guard six months after graduating high school in 1997, deploying to Saudi Arabia and then Kyrgyzstan. Joining the Guard was his means to joining law enforcement, his family said.

He would join the U.S. Capitol Police in 2008, serving until his death Thursday after being attacked as rioters seething over President Donald Trump’s election loss stormed the U.S. Capitol, believing the president’s false claims of a rigged election.

“His brother told me, ‘Brian did his job,’” said John Krenzel, the mayor of Sicknick’s hometown of South River, New Jersey. A congresswoman has asked top military officials that he be buried with honours at Arlington National Cemetery, and got a positive early response.

Sicknick’s death has shaken America as it grapples with how an armed mob could storm the halls of the U.S. Capitol as the presidential election results were being certified, sending hundreds of lawmakers, staff and journalists fleeing for safety. Videos published online show vastly outnumbered Capitol Police officers trying in vain to stop surging rioters, though other videos show officers not moving to stop rioters in the building.

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Rams get better of division rivals, toppling Seahawks 30-20

SEATTLE (AP) — Quietly, Aaron Donald, Jared Goff and the rest of the Los Angeles Rams seethed.

They watched less than two weeks ago as the Seattle Seahawks loudly celebrated a division title the Rams felt they gave away. Los Angeles desperately wanted another shot.

Behind a lot of Cam Akers churning yards on the ground and mostly a great defence, the Rams are moving on in the NFC playoffs at the expense of the Seahawks.

“We come up here, and all week we were told how good they are and how we snuck into the playoffs,” Goff said. “Two weeks ago you saw them smoking cigars and getting all excited about beating us, and winning the division, and we were able to come up here and beat them.”

Akers rushed for 131 yards and a touchdown, Darious Williams returned Russell Wilson’s interception 42 yards for a score, and the Rams beat the Seahawks 30-20 in the NFC wild-card playoff game Saturday.

The Associated Press